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WESTWARD HO!

by Charles Kingsley

TO

THE RAJAH SIR JAMES BROOKE, K.C.B.

AND

GEORGE AUGUSTUS SELWYN, D.D.

BISHOP OF NEW ZEALAND

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED

By one who (unknown to them) has no other method of expressing his

admiration and reverence for their characters.

That type of English virtue, at once manful and godly, practical

and enthusiastic, prudent and self-sacrificing, which he has tried

to depict in these pages, they have exhibited in a form even purer

and more heroic than that in which he has drest it, and than that

in which it was exhibited by the worthies whom Elizabeth, without

distinction of rank or age, gathered round her in the ever glorious

wars of her great reign.

C. K.

FEBRUARY, 1855.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

I. HOW MR. OXENHAM SAW THE WHITE BIRD

II. HOW AMYAS CAME HOME THE FIRST TIME

III. OF TWO GENTLEMEN OF WALES, AND HOW THEY HUNTED WITH THE

HOUNDS, AND YET RAN WITH THE DEER

IV. THE TWO WAYS OF BEING CROST IN LOVE

V. CLOVELLY COURT IN THE OLDEN TIME

VI. THE COMBES OF THE FAR WEST

VII. THE TRUE AND TRAGICAL HISTORY OF MR. JOHN OXENHAM OF PLYMOUTH

VIII. HOW THE NOBLE BROTHERHOOD OF THE ROSE WAS FOUNDED

IX. HOW AMYAS KEPT HIS CHRISTMAS DAY

X. HOW THE MAYOR OF BIDEFORD BAITED HIS HOOK WITH HIS OWN FLESH

XI. HOW EUSTACE LEIGH MET THE POPE'S LEGATE

XII. HOW BIDEFORD BRIDGE DINED AT ANNERY HOUSE

XIII. HOW THE GOLDEN HIND CAME HOME AGAIN

XIV. HOW SALVATION YEO SLEW THE KING OF THE GUBBINGS

XV. HOW MR. JOHN BRIMBLECOMBE UNDERSTOOD THE NATURE OF AN OATH

XVI. THE MOST CHIVALROUS ADVENTURE OF THE GOOD SHIP ROSE

XVII. HOW THEY CAME TO BARBADOS, AND FOUND NO MEN THEREIN

XVIII. HOW THEY TOOK THE PEARLS AT MARGARITA

XIX. WHAT BEFELL AT LA GUAYRA

XX. SPANISH BLOODHOUNDS AND ENGLISH MASTIFFS

XXI. HOW THEY TOOK THE COMMUNION UNDER THE TREE AT HIGUEROTE

XXII. THE INQUISITION IN THE INDIES

XXIII. THE BANKS OF THE META

XXIV. HOW AMYAS WAS TEMPTED OF THE DEVIL

XXV. HOW THEY TOOK THE GOLD-TRAIN

XXVI. HOW THEY TOOK THE GREAT GALLEON

XXVII. HOW SALVATION YEO FOUND HIS LITTLE MAID AGAIN

XXVIII. HOW AMYAS CAME HOME THE THIRD TIME

XXIX. HOW THE VIRGINIA FLEET WAS STOPPED BY THE QUEEN'S COMMAND

XXX. HOW THE ADMIRAL JOHN HAWKINS TESTIFIED AGAINST CROAKERS

XXXI. THE GREAT ARMADA

XXXII. HOW AMYAS THREW HIS SWORD INTO THE SEA

XXXIII. HOW AMYAS LET THE APPLE FALL

WESTWARD HO!

CHAPTER I

HOW MR. OXENHAM SAW THE WHITE BIRD

"The hollow oak our palace is,

Our heritage the sea."

All who have travelled through the delicious scenery of North Devon

must needs know the little white town of Bideford, which slopes

upwards from its broad tide-river paved with yellow sands, and

many-arched old bridge where salmon wait for autumn floods, toward

the pleasant upland on the west. Above the town the hills close

in, cushioned with deep oak woods, through which juts here and

there a crag of fern-fringed slate; below they lower, and open more

and more in softly rounded knolls, and fertile squares of red and

green, till they sink into the wide expanse of hazy flats, rich

salt-marshes, and rolling sand-hills, where Torridge joins her

sister Taw, and both together flow quietly toward the broad surges

of the bar, and the everlasting thunder of the long Atlantic swell.

Pleasantly the old town stands there, beneath its soft Italian sky,

fanned day and night by the fresh ocean breeze, which forbids alike

the keen winter frosts, and the fierce thunder heats of the

midland; and pleasantly it has stood there for now, perhaps, eight

hundred years since the first Grenville, cousin of the Conqueror,

returning from the conquest of South Wales, drew round him trusty

Saxon serfs, and free Norse rovers with their golden curls, and

dark Silurian Britons from the Swansea shore, and all the mingled

blood which still gives to the seaward folk of the next county

their strength and intellect, and, even in these levelling days,

their peculiar beauty of face and form.

But at the time whereof I write, Bideford was not merely a pleasant

country town, whose quay was haunted by a few coasting craft. It

was one of the chief ports of England; it furnished seven ships to

fight the Armada: even more than a century afterwards, say the

chroniclers, "it sent more vessels to the northern trade than any

port in England, saving (strange juxtaposition!) London and

Topsham," and was the centre of a local civilization and

enterprise, small perhaps compared with the vast efforts of the

present day: but who dare despise the day of small things, if it

has proved to be the dawn of mighty ones? And it is to the sea-

life and labor of Bideford, and Dartmouth, and Topsham, and

Plymouth (then a petty place), and many another little western

town, that England owes the foundation of her naval and commercial

glory. It was the men of Devon, the Drakes and Hawkins', Gilberts

and Raleighs, Grenvilles and Oxenhams, and a host more of

"forgotten worthies," whom we shall learn one day to honor as they

deserve, to whom she owes her commerce, her colonies, her very

existence. For had they not first crippled, by their West Indian

raids, the ill-gotten resources of the Spaniard, and then crushed

his last huge effort in Britain's Salamis, the glorious fight of

1588, what had we been by now but a popish appanage of a world-

tyranny as cruel as heathen Rome itself, and far more devilish?

It is in memory of these men, their voyages and their battles,

their faith and their valor, their heroic lives and no less heroic

deaths, that I write this book; and if now and then I shall seem to

warm into a style somewhat too stilted and pompous, let me be

excused for my subject's sake, fit rather to have been sung than

said, and to have proclaimed to all true English hearts, not as a

novel but as an epic (which some man may yet gird himself to

write), the same great message which the songs of Troy, and the

Persian wars, and the trophies of Marathon and Salamis, spoke to

the hearts of all true Greeks of old.

One bright summer's afternoon, in the year of grace 1575, a tall

and fair boy came lingering along Bideford quay, in his scholar's

gown, with satchel and slate in hand, watching wistfully the

shipping and the sailors, till, just after he had passed the bottom

of the High Street, he came opposite to one of the many taverns

which looked out upon the river. In the open bay window sat

merchants and gentlemen, discoursing over their afternoon's draught

of sack; and outside the door was gathered a group of sailors,

listening earnestly to some one who stood in the midst. The boy,

all alive for any sea-news, must needs go up to them, and take his

place among the sailor-lads who were peeping and whispering under

the elbows of the men; and so came in for the following speech,

delivered in a loud bold voice, with a strong Devonshire accent,

and a fair sprinkling of oaths.

"If you don't believe me, go and see, or stay here and grow all

over blue mould. I tell you, as I am a gentleman, I saw it with

these eyes, and so did Salvation Yeo there, through a window in the

lower room; and we measured the heap, as I am a christened man,

seventy foot long, ten foot broad, and twelve foot high, of silver

bars, and each bar between a thirty and forty pound weight. And

says Captain Drake: 'There, my lads of Devon, I've brought you to

the mouth of the world's treasure-house, and it's your own fault

now if you don't sweep it out as empty as a stock-fish.'"

"Why didn't you bring some of they home, then, Mr. Oxenham?"

"Why weren't you there to help to carry them? We would have

brought 'em away, safe enough, and young Drake and I had broke the

door abroad already, but Captain Drake goes off in a dead faint;

and when we came to look, he had a wound in his leg you might have

laid three fingers in, and his boots were full of blood, and had

been for an hour or more; but the heart of him was that, that he

never knew it till he dropped, and then his brother and I got him

away to the boats, he kicking and struggling, and bidding us let

him go on with the fight, though every step he took in the sand was

in a pool of blood; and so we got off. And tell me, ye sons of

shotten herrings, wasn't it worth more to save him than the dirty

silver? for silver we can get again, brave boys: there's more fish

in the sea than ever came out of it, and more silver in Nombre de

Dios than would pave all the streets in the west country: but of

such captains as Franky Drake, Heaven never makes but one at a

time; and if we lose him, good-bye to England's luck, say I, and

who don't agree, let him choose his weapons, and I'm his man."

He who delivered this harangue was a tall and sturdy personage,

with a florid black-bearded face, and bold restless dark eyes, who

leaned, with crossed legs and arms akimbo, against the wall of the

house; and seemed in the eyes of the schoolboy a very magnifico,

some prince or duke at least. He was dressed (contrary to all

sumptuary laws of the time) in a suit of crimson velvet, a little

the worse, perhaps, for wear; by his side were a long Spanish

rapier and a brace of daggers, gaudy enough about the hilts; his

fingers sparkled with rings; he had two or three gold chains about

his neck, and large earrings in his ears, behind one of which a red

rose was stuck jauntily enough among the glossy black curls; on his

head was a broad velvet Spanish hat, in which instead of a feather

was fastened with a great gold clasp a whole Quezal bird, whose

gorgeous plumage of fretted golden green shone like one entire

precious stone. As he finished his speech, he took off the said

hat, and looking at the bird in it--

"Look ye, my lads, did you ever see such a fowl as that before?

That's the bird which the old Indian kings of Mexico let no one

wear but their own selves; and therefore I wear it,--I, John

Oxenham of South Tawton, for a sign to all brave lads of Devon,

that as the Spaniards are the masters of the Indians, we're the

masters of the Spaniards:" and he replaced his hat.

A murmur of applause followed: but one hinted that he "doubted the

Spaniards were too many for them."

"Too many? How many men did we take Nombre de Dios with? Seventy-

three were we, and no more when we sailed out of Plymouth Sound;

and before we saw the Spanish Main, half were gastados, used up, as

the Dons say, with the scurvy; and in Port Pheasant Captain Rawse

of Cowes fell in with us, and that gave us some thirty hands more;

and with that handful, my lads, only fifty-three in all, we picked

the lock of the new world! And whom did we lose but our trumpeter,

who stood braying like an ass in the middle of the square, instead

of taking care of his neck like a Christian? I tell you, those

Spaniards are rank cowards, as all bullies are. They pray to a

woman, the idolatrous rascals! and no wonder they fight like

women."

"You'm right, captain," sang out a tall gaunt fellow who stood

close to him; "one westcountry-man can fight two easterlings, and

an easterling can beat three Dons any day. Eh! my lads of Devon?

"For O! it's the herrings and the good brown beef,

And the cider and the cream so white;

O! they are the making of the jolly Devon lads,

For to play, and eke to fight."

"Come," said Oxenham, "come along! Who lists? who lists? who'll

make his fortune?

"Oh, who will join, jolly mariners all?

And who will join, says he, O!

To fill his pockets with the good red goold,

By sailing on the sea, O!"

"Who'll list?" cried the gaunt man again; "now's your time! We've

got forty men to Plymouth now, ready to sail the minute we get

back, and we want a dozen out of you Bideford men, and just a boy

or two, and then we'm off and away, and make our fortunes, or go to

heaven.

"Our bodies in the sea so deep,

Our souls in heaven to rest!

Where valiant seamen, one and all,

Hereafter shall be blest!"

"Now," said Oxenham, "you won't let the Plymouth men say that the

Bideford men daren't follow them? North Devon against South, it

is. Who'll join? who'll join? It is but a step of a way, after

all, and sailing as smooth as a duck-pond as soon as you're past

Cape Finisterre. I'll run a Clovelly herring-boat there and back

for a wager of twenty pound, and never ship a bucketful all the

way. Who'll join? Don't think you're buying a pig in a poke. I

know the road, and Salvation Yeo, here, too, who was the gunner's

mate, as well as I do the narrow seas, and better. You ask him to

show you the chart of it, now, and see if he don't tell you over

the ruttier as well as Drake himself."

On which the gaunt man pulled from under his arm a great white

buffalo horn covered with rough etchings of land and sea, and held

it up to the admiring ring.

"See here, boys all, and behold the pictur of the place, dra'ed out

so natural as ever was life. I got mun from a Portingal, down to

the Azores; and he'd pricked mun out, and pricked mun out,

wheresoever he'd sailed, and whatsoever he'd seen. Take mun in

your hands now, Simon Evans, take mun in your hands; look mun over,

and I'll warrant you'll know the way in five minutes so well as

ever a shark in the seas."

And the horn was passed from hand to hand; while Oxenham, who saw

that his hearers were becoming moved, called through the open

window for a great tankard of sack, and passed that from hand to

hand, after the horn.

The school-boy, who had been devouring with eyes and ears all which

passed, and had contrived by this time to edge himself into the

inner ring, now stood face to face with the hero of the emerald

crest, and got as many peeps as he could at the wonder. But when

he saw the sailors, one after another, having turned it over a

while, come forward and offer to join Mr. Oxenham, his soul burned

within him for a nearer view of that wondrous horn, as magical in

its effects as that of Tristrem, or the enchanter's in Ariosto; and

when the group had somewhat broken up, and Oxenham was going into

the tavern with his recruits, he asked boldly for a nearer sight of

the marvel, which was granted at once.

And now to his astonished gaze displayed themselves cities and

harbors, dragons and elephants, whales which fought with sharks,

plate ships of Spain, islands with apes and palm-trees, each with

its name over-written, and here and there, "Here is gold;" and

again, "Much gold and silver;" inserted most probably, as the words

were in English, by the hands of Mr. Oxenham himself. Lingeringly

and longingly the boy turned it round and round, and thought the

owner of it more fortunate than Khan or Kaiser. Oh, if he could

but possess that horn, what needed he on earth beside to make him

blest!

"I say, will you sell this?"

"Yea, marry, or my own soul, if I can get the worth of it."

"I want the horn,--I don't want your soul; it's somewhat of a stale

sole, for aught I know; and there are plenty of fresh ones in the

bay."

And therewith, after much fumbling, he pulled out a tester (the

only one he had), and asked if that would buy it?

"That! no, nor twenty of them."

The boy thought over what a good knight-errant would do in such

case, and then answered, "Tell you what: I'll fight you for it."

"Thank 'ee, sir!

"Break the jackanapes's head for him, Yeo," said Oxenham.

"Call me jackanapes again, and I break yours, sir." And the boy

lifted his fist fiercely.

Oxenham looked at him a minute smilingly. "Tut! tut! my man, hit

one of your own size, if you will, and spare little folk like me!"

"If I have a boy's age, sir, I have a man's fist. I shall be

fifteen years old this month, and know how to answer any one who

insults me."

"Fifteen, my young cockerel? you look liker twenty," said Oxenham,

with an admiring glance at the lad's broad limbs, keen blue eyes,

curling golden locks, and round honest face. "Fifteen? If I had

half-a-dozen such lads as you, I would make knights of them before

I died. Eh, Yeo?"

"He'll do," said Yeo; "he will make a brave gamecock in a year or

two, if he dares ruffle up so early at a tough old hen-master like

the captain."

At which there was a general laugh, in which Oxenham joined as

loudly as any, and then bade the lad tell him why he was so keen

after the horn.

"Because," said he, looking up boldly, "I want to go to sea. I

want to see the Indies. I want to fight the Spaniards. Though I

am a gentleman's son, I'd a deal liever be a cabin-boy on board

your ship." And the lad, having hurried out his say fiercely

enough, dropped his head again.

"And you shall," cried Oxenham, with a great oath; "and take a

galloon, and dine off carbonadoed Dons. Whose son are you, my

gallant fellow?"

"Mr. Leigh's, of Burrough Court."

"Bless his soul! I know him as well as I do the Eddystone, and his

kitchen too. Who sups with him to-night?"

"Sir Richard Grenville."

"Dick Grenville? I did not know he was in town. Go home and tell

your father John Oxenham will come and keep him company. There,

off with you! I'll make all straight with the good gentleman, and

you shall have your venture with me; and as for the horn, let him

have the horn, Yeo, and I'll give you a noble for it."

"Not a penny, noble captain. If young master will take a poor

mariner's gift, there it is, for the sake of his love to the

calling, and Heaven send him luck therein." And the good fellow,

with the impulsive generosity of a true sailor, thrust the horn

into the boy's hands, and walked away to escape thanks.

"And now," quoth Oxenham, "my merry men all, make up your minds

what mannered men you be minded to be before you take your

bounties. I want none of your rascally lurching longshore vermin,

who get five pounds out of this captain, and ten out of that, and

let him sail without them after all, while they are stowed away

under women's mufflers, and in tavern cellars. If any man is of

that humor, he had better to cut himself up, and salt himself down

in a barrel for pork, before he meets me again; for by this light,

let me catch him, be it seven years hence, and if I do not cut his

throat upon the streets, it's a pity! But if any man will be true

brother to me, true brother to him I'll be, come wreck or prize,

storm or calm, salt water or fresh, victuals or none, share and

fare alike; and here's my hand upon it, for every man and all! and

so--

"Westward ho! with a rumbelow,

And hurra for the Spanish Main, O!"

After which oration Mr. Oxenham swaggered into the tavern, followed

by his new men; and the boy took his way homewards, nursing his

precious horn, trembling between hope and fear, and blushing with

maidenly shame, and a half-sense of wrong-doing at having revealed

suddenly to a stranger the darling wish which he had hidden from

his father and mother ever since he was ten years old.

Now this young gentleman, Amyas Leigh, though come of as good blood

as any in Devon, and having lived all his life in what we should

even now call the very best society, and being (on account of the

valor, courtesy, and truly noble qualities which he showed forth in

his most eventful life) chosen by me as the hero and centre of this

story, was not, saving for his good looks, by any means what would

be called now-a-days an "interesting" youth, still less a "highly

educated" one; for, with the exception of a little Latin, which had

been driven into him by repeated blows, as if it had been a nail,

he knew no books whatsoever, save his Bible, his Prayer-book, the

old "Mort d'Arthur" of Caxton's edition, which lay in the great bay

window in the hall, and the translation of "Las Casas' History of

the West Indies," which lay beside it, lately done into English

under the title of "The Cruelties of the Spaniards." He devoutly

believed in fairies, whom he called pixies; and held that they

changed babies, and made the mushroom rings on the downs to dance

in. When he had warts or burns, he went to the white witch at

Northam to charm them away; he thought that the sun moved round the

earth, and that the moon had some kindred with a Cheshire cheese.

He held that the swallows slept all the winter at the bottom of the

horse-pond; talked, like Raleigh, Grenville, and other low persons,

with a broad Devonshire accent; and was in many other respects so

very ignorant a youth, that any pert monitor in a national school

might have had a hearty laugh at him. Nevertheless, this ignorant

young savage, vacant of the glorious gains of the nineteenth

century, children's literature and science made easy, and, worst of

all, of those improved views of English history now current among

our railway essayists, which consist in believing all persons, male

and female, before the year 1688, and nearly all after it, to have

been either hypocrites or fools, had learnt certain things which he

would hardly have been taught just now in any school in England;

for his training had been that of the old Persians, "to speak the

truth and to draw the bow," both of which savage virtues he had

acquired to perfection, as well as the equally savage ones of

enduring pain cheerfully, and of believing it to be the finest

thing in the world to be a gentleman; by which word he had been

taught to understand the careful habit of causing needless pain to

no human being, poor or rich, and of taking pride in giving up his

own pleasure for the sake of those who were weaker than himself.

Moreover, having been entrusted for the last year with the breaking

of a colt, and the care of a cast of young hawks which his father

had received from Lundy Isle, he had been profiting much, by the

means of those coarse and frivolous amusements, in perseverance,

thoughtfulness, and the habit of keeping his temper; and though he

had never had a single "object lesson," or been taught to "use his

intellectual powers," he knew the names and ways of every bird, and

fish, and fly, and could read, as cunningly as the oldest sailor,

the meaning of every drift of cloud which crossed the heavens.

Lastly, he had been for some time past, on account of his

extraordinary size and strength, undisputed cock of the school, and

the most terrible fighter among all Bideford boys; in which brutal

habit he took much delight, and contrived, strange as it may seem,

to extract from it good, not only for himself but for others, doing

justice among his school-fellows with a heavy hand, and succoring

the oppressed and afflicted; so that he was the terror of all the

sailor-lads, and the pride and stay of all the town's boys and

girls, and hardly considered that he had done his duty in his

calling if he went home without beating a big lad for bullying a

little one. For the rest, he never thought about thinking, or felt

about feeling; and had no ambition whatsoever beyond pleasing his

father and mother, getting by honest means the maximum of "red

quarrenders" and mazard cherries, and going to sea when he was big

enough. Neither was he what would be now-a-days called by many a

pious child; for though he said his Creed and Lord's Prayer night

and morning, and went to the service at the church every forenoon,

and read the day's Psalms with his mother every evening, and had

learnt from her and from his father (as he proved well in after

life) that it was infinitely noble to do right and infinitely base

to do wrong, yet (the age of children's religious books not having

yet dawned on the world) he knew nothing more of theology, or of

his own soul, than is contained in the Church Catechism. It is a

question, however, on the whole, whether, though grossly ignorant

(according to our modern notions) in science and religion, he was

altogether untrained in manhood, virtue, and godliness; and whether

the barbaric narrowness of his information was not somewhat

counterbalanced both in him and in the rest of his generation by

the depth, and breadth, and healthiness of his education.

So let us watch him up the hill as he goes hugging his horn, to

tell all that has passed to his mother, from whom he had never

hidden anything in his life, save only that sea-fever; and that

only because he foreknew that it would give her pain; and because,

moreover, being a prudent and sensible lad, he knew that he was not

yet old enough to go, and that, as he expressed it to her that

afternoon, "there was no use hollaing till he was out of the wood."

So he goes up between the rich lane-banks, heavy with drooping

ferns and honeysuckle; out upon the windy down toward the old

Court, nestled amid its ring of wind-clipt oaks; through the gray

gateway into the homeclose; and then he pauses a moment to look

around; first at the wide bay to the westward, with its southern

wall of purple cliffs; then at the dim Isle of Lundy far away at

sea; then at the cliffs and downs of Morte and Braunton, right in

front of him; then at the vast yellow sheet of rolling sand-hill,

and green alluvial plain dotted with red cattle, at his feet,

through which the silver estuary winds onward toward the sea.

Beneath him, on his right, the Torridge, like a land-locked lake,

sleeps broad and bright between the old park of Tapeley and the

charmed rock of the Hubbastone, where, seven hundred years ago, the

Norse rovers landed to lay siege to Kenwith Castle, a mile away on

his left hand; and not three fields away, are the old stones of

"The Bloody Corner," where the retreating Danes, cut off from their

ships, made their last fruitless stand against the Saxon sheriff

and the valiant men of Devon. Within that charmed rock, so

Torridge boatmen tell, sleeps now the old Norse Viking in his

leaden coffin, with all his fairy treasure and his crown of gold;

and as the boy looks at the spot, he fancies, and almost hopes,

that the day may come when he shall have to do his duty against the

invader as boldly as the men of Devon did then. And past him, far

below, upon the soft southeastern breeze, the stately ships go

sliding out to sea. When shall he sail in them, and see the

wonders of the deep? And as he stands there with beating heart and

kindling eye, the cool breeze whistling through his long fair

curls, he is a symbol, though he knows it not, of brave young

England longing to wing its way out of its island prison, to

discover and to traffic, to colonize and to civilize, until no wind

can sweep the earth which does not bear the echoes of an English

voice. Patience, young Amyas! Thou too shalt forth, and westward

ho, beyond thy wildest dreams; and see brave sights, and do brave

deeds, which no man has since the foundation of the world. Thou

too shalt face invaders stronger and more cruel far than Dane or

Norman, and bear thy part in that great Titan strife before the

renown of which the name of Salamis shall fade away!

Mr. Oxenham came that evening to supper as he had promised: but as

people supped in those days in much the same manner as they do now,

we may drop the thread of the story for a few hours, and take it up

again after supper is over.

"Come now, Dick Grenville, do thou talk the good man round, and

I'll warrant myself to talk round the good wife."

The personage whom Oxenham addressed thus familiarly answered by a

somewhat sarcastic smile, and, "Mr. Oxenham gives Dick Grenville"

(with just enough emphasis on the "Mr." and the "Dick," to hint

that a liberty had been taken with him) "overmuch credit with the

men. Mr. Oxenham's credit with fair ladies, none can doubt.

Friend Leigh, is Heard's great ship home yet from the Straits?"

The speaker, known well in those days as Sir Richard Grenville,

Granville, Greenvil, Greenfield, with two or three other

variations, was one of those truly heroical personages whom

Providence, fitting always the men to their age and their work, had

sent upon the earth whereof it takes right good care, not in

England only, but in Spain and Italy, in Germany and the

Netherlands, and wherever, in short, great men and great deeds were

needed to lift the mediaeval world into the modern.

And, among all the heroic faces which the painters of that age have

preserved, none, perhaps, hardly excepting Shakespeare's or

Spenser's, Alva's or Farina's, is more heroic than that of Richard

Grenville, as it stands in Prince's "Worthies of Devon;" of a

Spanish type, perhaps (or more truly speaking, a Cornish), rather

than an English, with just enough of the British element in it to

give delicacy to its massiveness. The forehead and whole brain are

of extraordinary loftiness, and perfectly upright; the nose long,

aquiline, and delicately pointed; the mouth fringed with a short

silky beard, small and ripe, yet firm as granite, with just pout

enough of the lower lip to give hint of that capacity of noble

indignation which lay hid under its usual courtly calm and

sweetness; if there be a defect in the face, it is that the eyes

are somewhat small, and close together, and the eyebrows, though

delicately arched, and, without a trace of peevishness, too closely

pressed down upon them, the complexion is dark, the figure tall and

graceful; altogether the likeness of a wise and gallant gentleman,

lovely to all good men, awful to all bad men; in whose presence

none dare say or do a mean or a ribald thing; whom brave men left,

feeling themselves nerved to do their duty better, while cowards

slipped away, as bats and owls before the sun. So he lived and

moved, whether in the Court of Elizabeth, giving his counsel among

the wisest; or in the streets of Bideford, capped alike by squire

and merchant, shopkeeper and sailor; or riding along the moorland

roads between his houses of Stow and Bideford, while every woman

ran out to her door to look at the great Sir Richard, the pride of

North Devon; or, sitting there in the low mullioned window at

Burrough, with his cup of malmsey before him, and the lute to which

he had just been singing laid across his knees, while the red

western sun streamed in upon his high, bland forehead, and soft

curling locks; ever the same steadfast, God-fearing, chivalrous

man, conscious (as far as a soul so healthy could be conscious) of

the pride of beauty, and strength, and valor, and wisdom, and a

race and name which claimed direct descent from the grandfather of

the Conqueror, and was tracked down the centuries by valiant deeds

and noble benefits to his native shire, himself the noblest of his

race. Men said that he was proud; but he could not look round him

without having something to be proud of; that he was stern and

harsh to his sailors: but it was only when he saw in them any taint

of cowardice or falsehood; that he was subject, at moments, to such

fearful fits of rage, that he had been seen to snatch the glasses

from the table, grind them to pieces in his teeth, and swallow

them: but that was only when his indignation had been aroused by

some tale of cruelty or oppression, and, above all, by those West

Indian devilries of the Spaniards, whom he regarded (and in those

days rightly enough) as the enemies of God and man. Of this last

fact Oxenham was well aware, and therefore felt somewhat puzzled

and nettled, when, after having asked Mr. Leigh's leave to take

young Amyas with him and set forth in glowing colors the purpose of

his voyage, he found Sir Richard utterly unwilling to help him with

his suit.

"Heyday, Sir Richard! You are not surely gone over to the side of

those canting fellows (Spanish Jesuits in disguise, every one of

them, they are), who pretended to turn up their noses at Franky

Drake, as a pirate, and be hanged to them?"

"My friend Oxenham," answered he, in the sententious and measured

style of the day, "I have always held, as you should know by this,

that Mr. Drake's booty, as well as my good friend Captain

Hawkins's, is lawful prize, as being taken from the Spaniard, who

is not only hostis humani generis, but has no right to the same,

having robbed it violently, by torture and extreme iniquity, from

the poor Indian, whom God avenge, as He surely will."

"Amen," said Mrs. Leigh.

"I say Amen, too," quoth Oxenham, "especially if it please Him to

avenge them by English hands."

"And I also," went on Sir Richard; "for the rightful owners of the

said goods being either miserably dead, or incapable, by reason of

their servitude, of ever recovering any share thereof, the

treasure, falsely called Spanish, cannot be better bestowed than in

building up the state of England against them, our natural enemies;

and thereby, in building up the weal of the Reformed Churches

throughout the world, and the liberties of all nations, against a

tyranny more foul and rapacious than that of Nero or Caligula;

which, if it be not the cause of God, I, for one, know not what

God's cause is!" And, as he warmed in his speech, his eyes flashed

very fire.

"Hark now!" said Oxenham, "who can speak more boldly than he? and

yet he will not help this lad to so noble an adventure."

"You have asked his father and mother; what is their answer?"

"Mine is this," said Mr. Leigh; "if it be God's will that my boy

should become, hereafter, such a mariner as Sir Richard Grenville,

let him go, and God be with him; but let him first bide here at

home and be trained, if God give me grace, to become such a

gentleman as Sir Richard Grenville."

Sir Richard bowed low, and Mrs. Leigh catching up the last word--

"There, Mr. Oxenham, you cannot gainsay that, unless you will be

discourteous to his worship. And for me--though it be a weak

woman's reason, yet it is a mother's: he is my only child. His

elder brother is far away. God only knows whether I shall see him

again; and what are all reports of his virtues and his learning to

me, compared to that sweet presence which I daily miss? Ah! Mr.

Oxenham, my beautiful Joseph is gone; and though he be lord of

Pharaoh's household, yet he is far away in Egypt; and you will take

Benjamm also! Ah! Mr. Oxenham, you have no child, or you would not

ask for mine!"

"And how do you know that, my sweet madam!" said the adventurer,

turning first deadly pale, and then glowing red. Her last words

had touched him to the quick in some unexpected place; and rising,

he courteously laid her hand to his lips, and said--"I say no more.

Farewell, sweet madam, and God send all men such wives as you."

"And all wives," said she, smiling, "such husbands as mine."

"Nay, I will not say that," answered he, with a half sneer--and

then, "Farewell, friend Leigh--farewell, gallant Dick Grenville.

God send I see thee Lord High Admiral when I come home. And yet,

why should I come home? Will you pray for poor Jack, gentles?"

"Tut, tut, man! good words," said Leigh; "let us drink to our merry

meeting before you go." And rising, and putting the tankard of

malmsey to his lips, he passed it to Sir Richard, who rose, and

saying, "To the fortune of a bold mariner and a gallant gentleman,"

drank, and put the cup into Oxenham's hand.

The adventurer's face was flushed, and his eye wild. Whether from

the liquor he had drunk during the day, or whether from Mrs.

Leigh's last speech, he had not been himself for a few minutes. He

lifted the cup, and was in act to pledge them, when he suddenly

dropped it on the table, and pointed, staring and trembling, up and

down, and round the room, as if following some fluttering object.

"There! Do you see it? The bird!--the bird with the white

breast!"

Each looked at the other; but Leigh, who was a quick-witted man and

an old courtier, forced a laugh instantly, and cried--"Nonsense,

brave Jack Oxenham! Leave white birds for men who will show the

white feather. Mrs. Leigh waits to pledge you."

Oxenham recovered himself in a moment, pledged them all round,

drinking deep and fiercely; and after hearty farewells, departed,

never hinting again at his strange exclamation.

After he was gone, and while Leigh was attending him to the door,

Mrs. Leigh and Grenville kept a few minutes' dead silence. At

last--"God help him!" said she.

"Amen!" said Grenville, "for he never needed it more. But, indeed,

madam, I put no faith in such omens."

"But, Sir Richard, that bird has been seen for generations before

the death of any of his family. I know those who were at South

Tawton when his mother died, and his brother also; and they both

saw it. God help him! for, after all, he is a proper man."

"So many a lady has thought before now, Mrs. Leigh, and well for

him if they had not. But, indeed, I make no account of omens.

When God is ready for each man, then he must go; and when can he go

better?"

"But," said Mr. Leigh, who entered, "I have seen, and especially

when I was in Italy, omens and prophecies before now beget their

own fulfilment, by driving men into recklessness, and making them

run headlong upon that very ruin which, as they fancied, was

running upon them."

"And which," said Sir Richard, "they might have avoided, if,

instead of trusting in I know not what dumb and dark destiny, they

had trusted in the living God, by faith in whom men may remove

mountains, and quench the fire, and put to flight the armies of the

alien. I too know, and know not how I know, that I shall never die

in my bed."

"God forfend! " cried Mrs. Leigh.

"And why, fair madam, if I die doing my duty to my God and my

queen? The thought never moves me: nay, to tell the truth, I pray

often enough that I may be spared the miseries of imbecile old age,

and that end which the old Northmen rightly called 'a cow's death'

rather than a man's. But enough of this. Mr. Leigh, you have done

wisely to-night. Poor Oxenham does not go on his voyage with a

single eye. I have talked about him with Drake and Hawkins; and I

guess why Mrs. Leigh touched him so home when she told him that he

had no child."

"Has he one, then, in the West Indies?" cried the good lady.

"God knows; and God grant we may not hear of shame and sorrow

fallen upon an ancient and honorable house of Devon. My brother

Stukely is woe enough to North Devon for this generation."

"Poor braggadocio!" said Mr. Leigh; "and yet not altogether that

too, for he can fight at least."

"So can every mastiff and boar, much more an Englishman. And now

come hither to me, my adventurous godson, and don't look in such

doleful dumps. I hear you have broken all the sailor-boys' heads

already."

"Nearly all," said young Amyas, with due modesty.. "But am I not

to go to sea?"

"All things in their time, my boy, and God forbid that either I or

your worthy parents should keep you from that noble calling which

is the safeguard of this England and her queen. But you do not

wish to live and die the master of a trawler?"

"I should like to be a brave adventurer, like Mr. Oxenham."

"God grant you become a braver man than he! for, as I think, to be

bold against the enemy is common to the brutes; but the prerogative

of a man is to be bold against himself."

"How, sir?"

"To conquer our own fancies, Amyas, and our own lusts, and our

ambition, in the sacred name of duty; this it is to be truly brave,

and truly strong; for he who cannot rule himself, how can he rule

his crew or his fortunes? Come, now, I will make you a promise.

If you will bide quietly at home, and learn from your father and

mother all which befits a gentleman and a Christian, as well as a

seaman, the day shall come when you shall sail with Richard

Grenville himself, or with better men than he, on a nobler errand

than gold-hunting on the Spanish Main."

"O my boy, my boy!" said Mrs. Leigh, "hear what the good Sir

Richard promises you. Many an earl's son would be glad to be in

your place."

"And many an earl's son will be glad to be in his place a score

years hence, if he will but learn what I know you two can teach

him. And now, Amyas, my lad, I will tell you for a warning the

history of that Sir Thomas Stukely of whom I spoke just now, and

who was, as all men know, a gallant and courtly knight, of an

ancient and worshipful family in Ilfracombe, well practised in the

wars, and well beloved at first by our incomparable queen, the

friend of all true virtue, as I trust she will be of yours some

day; who wanted but one step to greatness, and that was this, that

in his hurry to rule all the world, he forgot to rule himself. At

first, he wasted his estate in show and luxury, always intending to

be famous, and destroying his own fame all the while by his

vainglory and haste. Then, to retrieve his losses, he hit upon the

peopling of Florida, which thou and I will see done some day, by

God's blessing; for I and some good friends of mine have an errand

there as well as he. But he did not go about it as a loyal man, to

advance the honor of his queen, but his own honor only, dreaming

that he too should be a king; and was not ashamed to tell her

majesty that he had rather be sovereign of a molehill than the

highest subject of an emperor."

"They say," said Mr. Leigh, "that he told her plainly he should be

a prince before he died, and that she gave him one of her pretty

quips in return."

"I don't know that her majesty had the best of it. A fool is many

times too strong for a wise man, by virtue of his thick hide. For

when she said that she hoped she should hear from him in his new

principality, 'Yes, sooth,' says he, graciously enough. 'And in

what style?' asks she. 'To our dear sister,' says Stukely: to

which her clemency had nothing to reply, but turned away, as Mr.

Burleigh told me, laughing."

"Alas for him!" said gentle Mrs. Leigh. "Such self-conceit--and

Heaven knows we have the root of it in ourselves also--is the very

daughter of self-will, and of that loud crying out about I, and me,

and mine, which is the very bird-call for all devils, and the broad

road which leads to death."

"It will lead him to his," said Sir Richard; "God grant it be not

upon Tower-hill! for since that Florida plot, and after that his

hopes of Irish preferment came to naught, he who could not help

himself by fair means has taken to foul ones, and gone over to

Italy to the Pope, whose infallibility has not been proof against

Stukely's wit; for he was soon his Holiness's closet counsellor,

and, they say, his bosom friend; and made him give credit to his

boasts that, with three thousand soldiers he would beat the English

out of Ireland, and make the Pope's son king of it."

"Ay, but," said Mr. Leigh, "I suppose the Italians have the same

fetch now as they had when I was there, to explain such ugly cases;

namely, that the Pope is infallible only in doctrine, and quoad

Pope; while quoad hominem, he is even as others, or indeed, in

general, a deal worse, so that the office, and not the man, may be

glorified thereby. But where is Stukely now?"

"At Rome when last I heard of him, ruffling it up and down the

Vatican as Baron Ross, Viscount Murrough, Earl Wexford, Marquis

Leinster, and a title or two more, which have cost the Pope little,

seeing that they never were his to give; and plotting, they say,

some hare-brained expedition against Ireland by the help of the

Spanish king, which must end in nothing but his shame and ruin.

And now, my sweet hosts, I must call for serving-boy and lantern,

and home to my bed in Bideford."

And so Amyas Leigh went back to school, and Mr. Oxenham went his

way to Plymouth again, and sailed for the Spanish Main.

CHAPTER II

HOW AMYAS CAME HOME THE FIRST TIME

"Si taceant homines, facient te sidera notum,

Sol nescit comitis immemor esse sui."

Old Epigram on Drake.

Five years are past and gone. It is nine of the clock on a still,

bright November morning; but the bells of Bideford church are still

ringing for the daily service two hours after the usual time; and

instead of going soberly according to wont, cannot help breaking

forth every five minutes into a jocund peal, and tumbling head over

heels in ecstasies of joy. Bideford streets are a very flower-

garden of all the colors, swarming with seamen and burghers, and

burghers' wives and daughters, all in their holiday attire.

Garlands are hung across the streets, and tapestries from every

window. The ships in the pool are dressed in all their flags, and

give tumultuous vent to their feelings by peals of ordnance of

every size. Every stable is crammed with horses; and Sir Richard

Grenville's house is like a very tavern, with eating and drinking,

and unsaddling, and running to and fro of grooms and serving-men.

Along the little churchyard, packed full with women, streams all

the gentle blood of North Devon,--tall and stately men, and fair

ladies, worthy of the days when the gentry of England were by due

right the leaders of the people, by personal prowess and beauty, as

well as by intellect and education. And first, there is my lady

Countess of Bath, whom Sir Richard Grenville is escorting, cap in

hand (for her good Earl Bourchier is in London with the queen); and

there are Bassets from beautiful Umberleigh, and Carys from more

beautiful Clovelly, and Fortescues of Wear, and Fortescues of

Buckland, and Fortescues from all quarters, and Coles from Slade,

and Stukelys from Affton, and St. Legers from Annery, and Coffins

from Portledge, and even Coplestones from Eggesford, thirty miles

away: and last, but not least (for almost all stop to give them

place), Sir John Chichester of Ralegh, followed in single file,

after the good old patriarchal fashion, by his eight daughters, and

three of his five famous sons (one, to avenge his murdered brother,

is fighting valiantly in Ireland, hereafter to rule there wisely

also, as Lord Deputy and Baron of Belfast); and he meets at the

gate his cousin of Arlington, and behind him a train of four

daughters and nineteen sons, the last of whom has not yet passed

the town-hall, while the first is at the Lychgate, who, laughing,

make way for the elder though shorter branch of that most fruitful

tree; and so on into the church, where all are placed according to

their degrees, or at least as near as may be, not without a few

sour looks, and shovings, and whisperings, from one high-born

matron and another; till the churchwardens and sidesmen, who never

had before so goodly a company to arrange, have bustled themselves

hot, and red, and frantic, and end by imploring abjectly the help

of the great Sir Richard himself to tell them who everybody is, and

which is the elder branch, and which is the younger, and who

carries eight quarterings in their arms, and who only four, and so

prevent their setting at deadly feud half the fine ladies of North

Devon; for the old men are all safe packed away in the corporation

pews, and the young ones care only to get a place whence they may

eye the ladies. And at last there is a silence, and a looking

toward the door, and then distant music, flutes and hautboys, drums

and trumpets, which come braying, and screaming, and thundering

merrily up to the very church doors, and then cease; and the

churchwardens and sidesmen bustle down to the entrance, rods in

hand, and there is a general whisper and rustle, not without glad

tears and blessings from many a woman, and from some men also, as

the wonder of the day enters, and the rector begins, not the

morning service, but the good old thanksgiving after a victory at

sea.

And what is it which has thus sent old Bideford wild with that

"goodly joy and pious mirth," of which we now only retain

traditions in our translation of the Psalms? Why are all eyes

fixed, with greedy admiration, on those four weather-beaten

mariners, decked out with knots and ribbons by loving hands; and

yet more on that gigantic figure who walks before them, a beardless

boy, and yet with the frame and stature of a Hercules, towering,

like Saul of old, a head and shoulders above all the congregation,

with his golden locks flowing down over his shoulders? And why, as

the five go instinctively up to the altar, and there fall on their

knees before the rails, are all eyes turned to the pew where Mrs.

Leigh of Burrough has hid her face between her hands, and her hood

rustles and shakes to her joyful sobs? Because there was fellow-

feeling of old in merry England, in county and in town; and these

are Devon men, and men of Bideford, whose names are Amyas Leigh of

Burrough, John Staveley, Michael Heard, and Jonas Marshall of

Bideford, and Thomas Braund of Clovelly: and they, the first of all

English mariners, have sailed round the world with Francis Drake,

and are come hither to give God thanks.

It is a long story. To explain how it happened we must go back for

a page or two, almost to the point from whence we started in the

last chapter.

For somewhat more than a twelvemonth after Mr. Oxenham's departure,

young Amyas had gone on quietly enough, according to promise, with

the exception of certain occasional outbursts of fierceness common

to all young male animals, and especially to boys of any strength

of character. His scholarship, indeed, progressed no better than

before; but his home education went on healthily enough; and he was

fast becoming, young as he was, a right good archer, and rider, and

swordsman (after the old school of buckler practice), when his

father, having gone down on business to the Exeter Assizes, caught

(as was too common in those days) the gaol-fever from the

prisoners; sickened in the very court; and died within a week.

And now Mrs. Leigh was left to God and her own soul, with this

young lion-cub in leash, to tame and train for this life and the

life to come. She had loved her husband fervently and holily. He

had been often peevish, often melancholy; for he was a disappointed

man, with an estate impoverished by his father's folly, and his own

youthful ambition, which had led him up to Court, and made him

waste his heart and his purse in following a vain shadow. He was

one of those men, moreover, who possess almost every gift except

the gift of the power to use them; and though a scholar, a

courtier, and a soldier, he had found himself, when he was past

forty, without settled employment or aim in life, by reason of a

certain shyness, pride, or delicate honor (call it which you will),

which had always kept him from playing a winning game in that very

world after whose prizes he hankered to the last, and on which he

revenged himself by continual grumbling. At last, by his good

luck, he met with a fair young Miss Foljambe, of Derbyshire, then

about Queen Elizabeth's Court, who was as tired as he of the sins

of the world, though she had seen less of them; and the two

contrived to please each other so well, that though the queen

grumbled a little, as usual, at the lady for marrying, and at the

gentleman for adoring any one but her royal self, they got leave to

vanish from the little Babylon at Whitehall, and settle in peace at

Burrough. In her he found a treasure, and he knew what he had

found.

Mrs. Leigh was, and had been from her youth, one of those noble old

English churchwomen, without superstition, and without severity,

who are among the fairest features of that heroic time. There was

a certain melancholy about her, nevertheless; for the recollections

of her childhood carried her back to times when it was an awful

thing to be a Protestant. She could remember among them, five-and-

twenty years ago, the burning of poor blind Joan Waste at Derby,

and of Mistress Joyce Lewis, too, like herself, a lady born; and

sometimes even now, in her nightly dreams, rang in her ears her

mother's bitter cries to God, either to spare her that fiery

torment, or to give her strength to bear it, as she whom she loved

had borne it before her. For her mother, who was of a good family

in Yorkshire, had been one of Queen Catherine's bedchamber women,

and the bosom friend and disciple of Anne Askew. And she had sat

in Smithfield, with blood curdled by horror, to see the hapless

Court beauty, a month before the paragon of Henry's Court, carried

in a chair (so crippled was she by the rack) to her fiery doom at

the stake, beside her fellow-courtier, Mr. Lascelles, while the

very heavens seemed to the shuddering mob around to speak their

wrath and grief in solemn thunder peals, and heavy drops which

hissed upon the crackling pile.

Therefore a sadness hung upon her all her life, and deepened in the

days of Queen Mary, when, as a notorious Protestant and heretic,

she had had to hide for her life among the hills and caverns of the

Peak, and was only saved, by the love which her husband's tenants

bore her, and by his bold declaration that, good Catholic as he

was, he would run through the body any constable, justice, or

priest, yea, bishop or cardinal, who dared to serve the queen's

warrant upon his wife.

So she escaped: but, as I said, a sadness hung upon her all her

life; and the skirt of that dark mantle fell upon the young girl

who had been the partner of her wanderings and hidings among the

lonely hills; and who, after she was married, gave herself utterly

up to God.

And yet in giving herself to God, Mrs. Leigh gave herself to her

husband, her children, and the poor of Northam Town, and was none

the less welcome to the Grenvilles, and Fortescues, and

Chichesters, and all the gentle families round, who honored her

husband's talents, and enjoyed his wit. She accustomed herself to

austerities, which often called forth the kindly rebukes of her

husband; and yet she did so without one superstitious thought of

appeasing the fancied wrath of God, or of giving Him pleasure (base

thought) by any pain of hers; for her spirit had been trained in

the freest and loftiest doctrines of Luther's school; and that

little mystic "Alt-Deutsch Theologie" (to which the great Reformer

said that he owed more than to any book, save the Bible, and St.

Augustine) was her counsellor and comforter by day and night.

And now, at little past forty, she was left a widow: lovely still

in face and figure; and still more lovely from the divine calm

which brooded, like the dove of peace and the Holy Spirit of God

(which indeed it was), over every look, and word, and gesture; a

sweetness which had been ripened by storm, as well as by sunshine;

which this world had not given, and could not take away. No wonder

that Sir Richard and Lady Grenville loved her; no wonder that her

children worshipped her; no wonder that the young Amyas, when the

first burst of grief was over, and he knew again where he stood,

felt that a new life had begun for him; that his mother was no more

to think and act for him only, but that he must think and act for

his mother. And so it was, that on the very day after his father's

funeral, when school-hours were over, instead of coming straight

home, he walked boldly into Sir Richard Grenville's house, and

asked to see his godfather.

"You must be my father now, sir," said he, firmly.

And Sir Richard looked at the boy's broad strong face, and swore a

great and holy oath, like Glasgerion's, "by oak, and ash, and

thorn," that he would be a father to him, and a brother to his

mother, for Christ's sake. And Lady Grenville took the boy by the

hand, and walked home with him to Burrough; and there the two fair

women fell on each other's necks, and wept together; the one for

the loss which had been, the other, as by a prophetic instinct, for

the like loss which was to come to her also. For the sweet St.

Leger knew well that her husband's fiery spirit would never leave

his body on a peaceful bed; but that death (as he prayed almost

nightly that it might) would find him sword in hand, upon the field

of duty and of fame. And there those two vowed everlasting

sisterhood, and kept their vow; and after that all things went on

at Burrough as before; and Amyas rode, and shot, and boxed, and

wandered on the quay at Sir Richard's side; for Mrs. Leigh was too

wise a woman to alter one tittle of the training which her husband

had thought best for his younger boy. It was enough that her elder

son had of his own accord taken to that form of life in which she

in her secret heart would fain have moulded both her children. For

Frank, God's wedding gift to that pure love of hers, had won

himself honor at home and abroad; first at the school at Bideford;

then at Exeter College, where he had become a friend of Sir Philip

Sidney's, and many another young man of rank and promise; and next,

in the summer of 1572, on his way to the University of Heidelberg,

he had gone to Paris, with (luckily for him) letters of

recommendation to Walsingham, at the English Embassy: by which

letters he not only fell in a second time with Philip Sidney, but

saved his own life (as Sidney did his) in the Massacre of St.

Bartholomew's Day. At Heidelberg he had stayed two years, winning

fresh honor from all who knew him, and resisting all Sidney's

entreaties to follow him into Italy. For, scorning to be a burden

to his parents, he had become at Heidelberg tutor to two young

German princes, whom, after living with them at their father's

house for a year or more, he at last, to his own great delight,

took with him down to Padua, "to perfect them," as he wrote home,

"according to his insufficiency, in all princely studies." Sidney

was now returned to England; but Frank found friends enough without

him, such letters of recommendation and diplomas did he carry from

I know not how many princes, magnificos, and learned doctors, who

had fallen in love with the learning, modesty, and virtue of the

fair young Englishman. And ere Frank returned to Germany he had

satiated his soul with all the wonders of that wondrous land. He

had talked over the art of sonneteering with Tasso, the art of

history with Sarpi; he had listened, between awe and incredulity,

to the daring theories of Galileo; he had taken his pupils to

Venice, that their portraits might be painted by Paul Veronese; he

had seen the palaces of Palladio, and the merchant princes on the

Rialto, and the argosies of Ragusa, and all the wonders of that

meeting-point of east and west; he had watched Tintoretto's mighty

hand "hurling tempestuous glories o'er the scene;" and even, by

dint of private intercession in high places, had been admitted to

that sacred room where, with long silver beard and undimmed eye,

amid a pantheon of his own creations, the ancient Titian, patriarch

of art, still lingered upon earth, and told old tales of the

Bellinis, and Raffaelle, and Michael Angelo, and the building of

St. Peter's, and the fire at Venice, and the sack of Rome, and of

kings and warriors, statesmen and poets, long since gone to their

account, and showed the sacred brush which Francis the First had

stooped to pick up for him. And (license forbidden to Sidney by

his friend Languet) he had been to Rome, and seen (much to the

scandal of good Protestants at home) that "right good fellow," as

Sidney calls him, who had not yet eaten himself to death, the Pope

for the time being. And he had seen the frescos of the Vatican,

and heard Palestrina preside as chapel-master over the performance

of his own music beneath the dome of St. Peter's, and fallen half

in love with those luscious strains, till he was awakened from his

dream by the recollection that beneath that same dome had gone up

thanksgivings to the God of heaven for those blood-stained streets,

and shrieking women, and heaps of insulted corpses, which he had

beheld in Paris on the night of St. Bartholomew. At last, a few

months before his father died, he had taken back his pupils to

their home in Germany, from whence he was dismissed, as he wrote,

with rich gifts; and then Mrs. Leigh's heart beat high, at the

thought that the wanderer would return: but, alas! within a month

after his father's death, came a long letter from Frank, describing

the Alps, and the valleys of the Waldenses (with whose Barbes he

had had much talk about the late horrible persecutions), and

setting forth how at Padua he had made the acquaintance of that

illustrious scholar and light of the age, Stephanus Parmenius

(commonly called from his native place, Budaeus), who had visited

Geneva with him, and heard the disputations of their most learned

doctors, which both he and Budaeus disliked for their hard

judgments both of God and man, as much as they admired them for

their subtlety, being themselves, as became Italian students,

Platonists of the school of Ficinus and Picus Mirandolensis. So

wrote Master Frank, in a long sententious letter, full of Latin

quotations: but the letter never reached the eyes of him for whose

delight it had been penned: and the widow had to weep over it

alone, and to weep more bitterly than ever at the conclusion, in

which, with many excuses, Frank said that he had, at the special

entreaty of the said Budaeus, set out with him down the Danube

stream to Buda, that he might, before finishing his travels, make

experience of that learning for which the Hungarians were famous

throughout Europe. And after that, though he wrote again and again

to the father whom he fancied living, no letter in return reached

him from home for nearly two years; till, fearing some mishap, he

hurried back to England, to find his mother a widow, and his

brother Amyas gone to the South Seas with Captain Drake of

Plymouth. And yet, even then, after years of absence, he was not

allowed to remain at home. For Sir Richard, to whom idleness was a

thing horrible and unrighteous, would have him up and doing again

before six months were over, and sent him off to Court to Lord

Hunsdon.

There, being as delicately beautiful as his brother was huge and

strong, he had speedily, by Carew's interest and that of Sidney and

his Uncle Leicester, found entrance into some office in the queen's

household; and he was now basking in the full sunshine of Court

favor, and fair ladies' eyes, and all the chivalries and euphuisms

of Gloriana's fairyland, and the fast friendship of that bright

meteor Sidney, who had returned with honor in 1577, from the

delicate mission on behalf of the German and Belgian Protestants,

on which he had been sent to the Court of Vienna, under color of

condoling with the new Emperor Rodolph on his father's death.

Frank found him when he himself came to Court in 1579 as lovely and

loving as ever; and, at the early age of twenty-five, acknowledged

as one of the most remarkable men of Europe, the patron of all men

of letters, the counsellor of warriors and statesmen, and the

confidant and advocate of William of Orange, Languet, Plessis du

Mornay, and all the Protestant leaders on the Continent; and found,

moreover, that the son of the poor Devon squire was as welcome as

ever to the friendship of nature's and fortune's most favored, yet

most unspoilt, minion.

Poor Mrs. Leigh, as one who had long since learned to have no self,

and to live not only for her children but in them, submitted

without a murmur, and only said, smiling, to her stern friend--"You

took away my mastiff-pup, and now you must needs have my fair

greyhound also."

"Would you have your fair greyhound, dear lady, grow up a tall and

true Cotswold dog, that can pull down a stag of ten, or one of

those smooth-skinned poppets which the Florence ladies lead about

with a ring of bells round its neck, and a flannel farthingale over

its loins?"

Mrs. Leigh submitted; and was rewarded after a few months by a

letter, sent through Sir Richard, from none other than Gloriana

herself, in which she thanked her for "the loan of that most

delicate and flawless crystal, the soul of her excellent son," with

more praises of him than I have room to insert, and finished by

exalting the poor mother above the famed Cornelia; "for those sons,

whom she called her jewels, she only showed, yet kept them to

herself: but you, madam, having two as precious, I doubt not, as

were ever that Roman dame's, have, beyond her courage, lent them

both to your country and to your queen, who therein holds herself

indebted to you for that which, if God give her grace, she will

repay as becomes both her and you." Which epistle the sweet mother

bedewed with holy tears, and laid by in the cedar-box which held

her household gods, by the side of Frank's innumerable diplomas and

letters of recommendation, the Latin whereof she was always

spelling over (although she understood not a word of it), in hopes

of finding, here and there, that precious excellentissimus Noster

Franciscus Leighius Anglus, which was all in all to the mother's

heart.

But why did Amyas go to the South Seas? Amyas went to the South

Seas for two causes, each of which has, before now, sent many a lad

to far worse places: first, because of an old schoolmaster;

secondly, because of a young beauty. I will take them in order and

explain.

Vindex Brimblecombe, whilom servitor of Exeter College, Oxford

(commonly called Sir Vindex, after the fashion of the times), was,

in those days, master of the grammar-school of Bideford. He was,

at root, a godly and kind-hearted pedant enough; but, like most

schoolmasters in the old flogging days, had his heart pretty well

hardened by long, baneful license to inflict pain at will on those

weaker than himself; a power healthful enough for the victim (for,

doubtless, flogging is the best of all punishments, being not only

the shortest, but also a mere bodily and animal, and not, like most

of our new-fangled "humane" punishments, a spiritual and fiendish

torture), but for the executioner pretty certain to eradicate, from

all but the noblest spirits, every trace of chivalry and tenderness

for the weak, as well, often, as all self-control and command of

temper. Be that as it may, old Sir Vindex had heart enough to feel

that it was now his duty to take especial care of the fatherless

boy to whom he tried to teach his qui, quae, quod: but the only

outcome of that new sense of responsibility was a rapid increase in

the number of floggings, which rose from about two a week to one

per diem, not without consequences to the pedagogue himself.

For all this while, Amyas had never for a moment lost sight of his

darling desire for a sea-life; and when he could not wander on the

quay and stare at the shipping, or go down to the pebble-ridge at

Northam, and there sit, devouring, with hungry eyes, the great

expanse of ocean, which seemed to woo him outward into boundless

space, he used to console himself, in school-hours, by drawing

ships and imaginary charts upon his slate, instead of minding his

"humanities."

Now it befell, upon an afternoon, that he was very busy at a map,

or bird's-eye view of an island, whereon was a great castle, and at

the gate thereof a dragon, terrible to see; while in the foreground

came that which was meant for a gallant ship, with a great flag

aloft, but which, by reason of the forest of lances with which it

was crowded, looked much more like a porcupine carrying a sign-

post; and, at the roots of those lances, many little round o's,

whereby was signified the heads of Amyas and his schoolfellows, who

were about to slay that dragon, and rescue the beautiful princess

who dwelt in that enchanted tower. To behold which marvel of art,

all the other boys at the same desk must needs club their heads

together, and with the more security, because Sir Vindex, as was

his custom after dinner, was lying back in his chair, and slept the

sleep of the just.

But when Amyas, by special instigation of the evil spirit who

haunts successful artists, proceeded further to introduce, heedless

of perspective, a rock, on which stood the lively portraiture of

Sir Vindex--nose, spectacles, gown, and all; and in his hand a

brandished rod, while out of his mouth a label shrieked after the

runaways, "You come back!" while a similar label replied from the

gallant bark, "Good-bye, master!" the shoving and tittering rose to

such a pitch that Cerberus awoke, and demanded sternly what the

noise was about. To which, of course, there was no answer.

"You, of course, Leigh! Come up, sir, and show me your

exercitation."

Now of Amyas's exercitation not a word was written; and, moreover,

he was in the very article of putting the last touches to Mr.

Brimblecombe's portrait. Whereon, to the astonishment of all

hearers, he made answer--

"All in good time, sir!" and went on drawing.

In good time, sir! Insolent, veni et vapula!"

But Amyas went on drawing.

"Come hither, sirrah, or I'll flay you alive!"

"Wait a bit!" answered Amyas.

The old gentleman jumped up, ferula in hand, and darted across the

school, and saw himself upon the fatal slate.

"Proh flagitium! what have we here, villain?" and clutching at his

victim, he raised the cane. Whereupon, with a serene and cheerful

countenance, up rose the mighty form of Amyas Leigh, a head and

shoulders above his tormentor, and that slate descended on the bald

coxcomb of Sir Vindex Brimblecombe, with so shrewd a blow that

slate and pate cracked at the same instant, and the poor pedagogue

dropped to the floor, and lay for dead.

After which Amyas arose, and walked out of the school, and so

quietly home; and having taken counsel with himself, went to his

mother, and said, "Please, mother, I've broken schoolmaster's

head."

"Broken his head, thou wicked boy!" shrieked the poor widow; "what

didst do that for?"

"I can't tell," said Amyas, penitently; "I couldn't help it. It

looked so smooth, and bald, and round, and--you know?"

"I know? Oh, wicked boy! thou hast given place to the devil; and

now, perhaps, thou hast killed him."

"Killed the devil?" asked Amyas, hopefully but doubtfully.

"No, killed the schoolmaster, sirrah! Is he dead?"

"I don't think he's dead; his coxcomb sounded too hard for that.

But had not I better go and tell Sir Richard?"

The poor mother could hardly help laughing, in spite of her terror,

at Amyas's perfect coolness (which was not in the least meant for

insolence), and being at her wits' end, sent him, as usual, to his

godfather.

Amyas rehearsed his story again, with pretty nearly the same

exclamations, to which he gave pretty nearly the same answers; and

then--"What was he going to do to you, then, sirrah?"

"Flog me, because I could not write my exercise, and so drew a

picture of him instead."

"What! art afraid of being flogged?"

"Not a bit; besides, I'm too much accustomed to it; but I was busy,

and he was in such a desperate hurry; and, oh, sir, if you had but

seen his bald head, you would have broken it yourself!"

Now Sir Richard had, twenty years ago, in like place, and very much

in like manner, broken the head of Vindex Brimblecombe's father,

schoolmaster in his day, and therefore had a precedent to direct

him; and he answered--"Amyas, sirrah! those who cannot obey will

never be fit to rule. If thou canst not keep discipline now, thou

wilt never make a company or a crew keep it when thou art grown.

Dost mind that, sirrah?"

"Yes," said Amyas.

"Then go back to school this moment, sir, and be flogged."

"Very well," said Amyas, considering that he had got off very

cheaply; while Sir Richard, as soon as he was out of the room, lay

back in his chair, and laughed till he cried again.

So Amyas went back, and said that he was come to be flogged;

whereon the old schoolmaster, whose pate had been plastered

meanwhile, wept tears of joy over the returning prodigal, and then

gave him such a switching as he did not forget for eight-and-forty

hours.

But that evening Sir Richard sent for old Vindex, who entered,

trembling, cap in hand; and having primed him with a cup of sack,

said--"Well, Mr. Schoolmaster! My godson has been somewhat too

much for you to-day. There are a couple of nobles to pay the

doctor."

"O Sir Richard, gratias tibi et Domino! but the boy hits shrewdly

hard. Nevertheless I have repaid him in inverse kind, and set him

an imposition, to learn me one of Phaedrus his fables, Sir Richard,

if you do not think it too much."

"Which, then? The one about the man who brought up a lion's cub,

and was eaten by him in play at last?"

"Ah, Sir Richard! you have always a merry wit. But, indeed, the

boy is a brave boy, and a quick boy, Sir Richard, but more

forgetful than Lethe; and--sapienti loquor--it were well if he were

away, for I shall never see him again without my head aching.

Moreover, he put my son Jack upon the fire last Wednesday, as you

would put a football, though he is a year older, your worship,

because, he said, he looked so like a roasting pig, Sir Richard."

"Alas, poor Jack!"

"And what's more, your worship, he is pugnax, bellicosus,

gladiator, a fire-eater and swash-buckler, beyond all Christian

measure; a very sucking Entellus, Sir Richard, and will do to death

some of her majesty's lieges erelong, if he be not wisely curbed.

It was but a month agone that he bemoaned himself, I hear, as

Alexander did, because there were no more worlds to conquer, saying

that it was a pity he was so strong; for, now he had thrashed all

the Bideford lads, he had no sport left; and so, as my Jack tells

me, last Tuesday week he fell upon a young man of Barnstaple, Sir

Richard, a hosier's man, sir, and plebeius (which I consider unfit

for one of his blood), and, moreover, a man full grown, and as big

as either of us (Vindex stood five feet four in his high-heeled

shoes), and smote him clean over the quay into the mud, because he

said that there was a prettier maid in Barnstaple (your worship

will forgive my speaking of such toys, to which my fidelity compels

me) than ever Bideford could show; and then offered to do the same

to any man who dare say that Mistress Rose Salterne, his worship

the mayor's daughter, was not the fairest lass in all Devon."

"Eh? Say that over again, my good sir," quoth Sir Richard, who had

thus arrived, as we have seen, at the second count of the

indictment. "I say, good sir, whence dost thou hear all these

pretty stories?"

"My son Jack, Sir Richard, my son Jack, ingenui vultus puer."

"But not, it seems, ingenui pudoris. Tell thee what, Mr.

Schoolmaster, no wonder if thy son gets put on the fire, if thou

employ him as a tale-bearer. But that is the way of all pedagogues

and their sons, by which they train the lads up eavesdroppers and

favor-curriers, and prepare them--sirrah, do you hear?--for a much

more lasting and hotter fire than that which has scorched thy son

Jack's nether-tackle. Do you mark me, sir?"

The poor pedagogue, thus cunningly caught in his own trap, stood

trembling before his patron, who, as hereditary head of the Bridge

Trust, which endowed the school and the rest of the Bideford

charities, could, by a turn of his finger, sweep him forth with the

besom of destruction; and he gasped with terror as Sir Richard went

on--"Therefore, mind you, Sir Schoolmaster, unless you shall

promise me never to hint word of what has passed between us two,

and that neither you nor yours shall henceforth carry tales of my

godson, or speak his name within a day's march of Mistress

Salterne's, look to it, if I do not--"

What was to be done in default was not spoken; for down went poor

old Vindex on his knees:--

"Oh, Sir Richard! Excellentissime, immo praecelsissime Domine et

Senator, I promise! O sir, Miles et Eques of the Garter, Bath, and

Golden Fleece, consider your dignities, and my old age--and my

great family--nine children--oh, Sir Richard, and eight of them

girls!--Do eagles war with mice? says the ancient!"

"Thy large family, eh? How old is that fat-witted son of thine?"

"Sixteen, Sir Richard; but that is not his fault, indeed!"

"Nay, I suppose he would be still sucking his thumb if he dared--

get up, man--get up and seat yourself."

"Heaven forbid!" murmured poor Vindex, with deep humility.

"Why is not the rogue at Oxford, with a murrain on him, instead of

lurching about here carrying tales and ogling the maidens?"

"I had hoped, Sir Richard--and therefore I said it was not his

fault--but there was never a servitorship at Exeter open."

"Go to, man--go to! I will speak to my brethren of the Trust, and

to Oxford he shall go this autumn, or else to Exeter gaol, for a

strong rogue, and a masterless man. Do you hear?"

"Hear?--oh, sir, yes! and return thanks. Jack shall go, Sir

Richard, doubt it not--I were mad else; and, Sir Richard, may I go

too?"

And therewith Vindex vanished, and Sir Richard enjoyed a second

mighty laugh, which brought in Lady Grenville, who possibly had

overheard the whole; for the first words she said were--

"I think, my sweet life, we had better go up to Burrough."

So to Burrough they went; and after much talk, and many tears,

matters were so concluded that Amyas Leigh found himself riding

joyfully towards Plymouth, by the side of Sir Richard, and being

handed over to Captain Drake, vanished for three years from the

good town of Bideford.

And now he is returned in triumph, and the observed of all

observers; and looks round and round, and sees all faces whom he

expects, except one; and that the one which he had rather see than

his mother's? He is not quite sure. Shame on himself!

And now the prayers being ended, the rector ascends the pulpit, and

begins his sermon on the text:--

"The heaven and the heaven of heavens are the Lord's; the whole

earth hath he given to the children of men;" deducing therefrom

craftily, to the exceeding pleasure of his hearers, the iniquity of

the Spaniards in dispossessing the Indians, and in arrogating to

themselves the sovereignty of the tropic seas; the vanity of the

Pope of Rome in pretending to bestow on them the new countries of

America; and the justice, valor, and glory of Mr. Drake and his

expedition, as testified by God's miraculous protection of him and

his, both in the Straits of Magellan, and in his battle with the

Galleon; and last, but not least, upon the rock by Celebes, when

the Pelican lay for hours firmly fixed, and was floated off unhurt,

as it were by miracle, by a sudden shift of wind.

Ay, smile, reader, if you will; and, perhaps, there was matter for

a smile in that honest sermon, interlarded, as it was, with scraps

of Greek and Hebrew, which no one understood, but every one

expected as their right (for a preacher was nothing then who could

not prove himself "a good Latiner"); and graced, moreover, by a

somewhat pedantic and lengthy refutation from Scripture of Dan

Horace's cockney horror of the sea--

"Illi robur et aes triplex," etc.

and his infidel and ungodly slander against the impias rates, and

their crews.

Smile, if you will: but those were days (and there were never less

superstitious ones) in which Englishmen believed in the living God,

and were not ashamed to acknowledge, as a matter of course, His

help and providence, and calling, in the matters of daily life,

which we now in our covert atheism term "secular and carnal;" and

when, the sermon ended, the communion service had begun, and the

bread and the wine were given to those five mariners, every gallant

gentleman who stood near them (for the press would not allow of

more) knelt and received the elements with them as a thing of

course, and then rose to join with heart and voice not merely in

the Gloria in Excelsis, but in the Te Deum, which was the closing

act of all. And no sooner had the clerk given out the first verse

of that great hymn, than it was taken up by five hundred voices

within the church, in bass and tenor, treble and alto (for every

one could sing in those days, and the west-country folk, as now,

were fuller than any of music), the chant was caught up by the

crowd outside, and rang away over roof and river, up to the woods

of Annery, and down to the marshes of the Taw, in wave on wave of

harmony. And as it died away, the shipping in the river made

answer with their thunder, and the crowd streamed out again toward

the Bridge Head, whither Sir Richard Grenville, and Sir John

Chichester, and Mr. Salterne, the Mayor, led the five heroes of the

day to await the pageant which had been prepared in honor of them.

And as they went by, there were few in the crowd who did not press

forward to shake them by the hand, and not only them, but their

parents and kinsfolk who walked behind, till Mrs. Leigh, her

stately joy quite broken down at last, could only answer between

her sobs, "Go along, good people--God a mercy, go along--and God

send you all such sons!"

"God give me back mine!" cried an old red-cloaked dame in the

crowd; and then, struck by some hidden impulse, she sprang forward,

and catching hold of young Amyas's sleeve--

"Kind sir! dear sir! For Christ his sake answer a poor old widow

woman!"

"What is it, dame?" quoth Amyas, gently enough.

"Did you see my son to the Indies?--my son Salvation?"

"Salvation?" replied he, with the air of one who recollected the

name.

"Yes, sure, Salvation Yeo, of Clovelly. A tall man and black, and

sweareth awfully in his talk, the Lord forgive him!"

Amyas recollected now. It was the name of the sailor who had given

him the wondrous horn five years ago.

"My good dame," said he, "the Indies are a very large place, and

your son may be safe and sound enough there, without my having seen

him. I knew one Salvation Yeo. But he must have come with-- By

the by, godfather, has Mr. Oxenham come home?"

There was a dead silence for a moment among the gentlemen round;

and then Sir Richard said solemnly, and in a low voice, turning

away from the old dame,--

"Amyas, Mr. Oxenham has not come home; and from the day he sailed,

no word has been heard of him and all his crew."

"Oh, Sir Richard! and you kept me from sailing with him! Had I

known this before I went into church, I had had one mercy more to

thank God for."

"Thank Him all the more in thy life, my child!" whispered his

mother.

"And no news of him whatsoever?"

"None; but that the year after he sailed, a ship belonging to

Andrew Barker, of Bristol, took out of a Spanish caravel, somewhere

off the Honduras, his two brass guns; but whence they came the

Spaniard knew not, having bought them at Nombre de Dios."

"Yes!" cried the old woman; "they brought home the guns, and never

brought home my boy!"

"They never saw your boy, mother," said Sir Richard.

"But I've seen him! I saw him in a dream four years last

Whitsuntide, as plain as I see you now, gentles, a-lying upon a

rock, calling for a drop of water to cool his tongue, like Dives to

the torment! Oh! dear me!" and the old dame wept bitterly.

"There is a rose noble for you!" said Mrs. Leigh.

"And there another!" said Sir Richard. And in a few minutes four

or five gold coins were in her hand. But the old dame did but look

wonderingly at the gold a moment, and then--

"Ah! dear gentles, God's blessing on you, and Mr. Cary's mighty

good to me already; but gold won't buy back childer! O! young

gentleman! young gentleman! make me a promise; if you want God's

blessing on you this day, bring me back my boy, if you find him

sailing on the seas! Bring him back, and an old widow's blessing

be on you!"

Amyas promised--what else could he do?--and the group hurried on;

but the lad's heart was heavy in the midst of joy, with the thought

of John Oxenham, as he walked through the churchyard, and down the

short street which led between the ancient school and still more

ancient town-house, to the head of the long bridge, across which

the pageant, having arranged "east-the-water," was to defile, and

then turn to the right along the quay.

However, he was bound in all courtesy to turn his attention now to

the show which had been prepared in his honor, and which was really

well enough worth seeing and hearing. The English were, in those

days, an altogether dramatic people; ready and able, as in Bideford

that day, to extemporize a pageant, a masque, or any effort of the

Thespian art short of the regular drama. For they were, in the

first place, even down to the very poorest, a well-fed people, with

fewer luxuries than we, but more abundant necessaries; and while

beef, ale, and good woollen clothes could be obtained in plenty,

without overworking either body or soul, men had time to amuse

themselves in something more intellectual than mere toping in pot-

houses. Moreover, the half century after the Reformation in

England was one not merely of new intellectual freedom, but of

immense animal good spirits. After years of dumb confusion and

cruel persecution, a breathing time had come: Mary and the fires of

Smithfield had vanished together like a hideous dream, and the

mighty shout of joy which greeted Elizabeth's entry into London,

was the key-note of fifty glorious years; the expression of a new-

found strength and freedom, which vented itself at home in drama

and in song; abroad in mighty conquests, achieved with the laughing

recklessness of boys at play.

So first, preceded by the waits, came along the bridge toward the

town-hall a device prepared by the good rector, who, standing by,

acted as showman, and explained anxiously to the bystanders the

import of a certain "allegory" wherein on a great banner was

depicted Queen Elizabeth herself, who, in ample ruff and

farthingale, a Bible in one hand and a sword in the other, stood

triumphant upon the necks of two sufficiently abject personages,

whose triple tiara and imperial crown proclaimed them the Pope and

the King of Spain; while a label, issuing from her royal mouth,

informed the world that--

"By land and sea a virgin queen I reign,

And spurn to dust both Antichrist and Spain."

Which, having been received with due applause, a well-bedizened

lad, having in his cap as a posy "Loyalty," stepped forward, and

delivered himself of the following verses:--

"Oh, great Eliza! oh, world-famous crew!

Which shall I hail more blest, your queen or you?

While without other either falls to wrack,

And light must eyes, or eyes their light must lack.

She without you, a diamond sunk in mine,

Its worth unprized, to self alone must shine;

You without her, like hands bereft of head,

Like Ajax rage, by blindfold lust misled.

She light, you eyes; she head, and you the hands,

In fair proportion knit by heavenly hands;

Servants in queen, and queen in servants blest;

Your only glory, how to serve her best;

And hers how best the adventurous might to guide,

Which knows no check of foemen, wind, or tide,

So fair Eliza's spotless fame may fly

Triumphant round the globe, and shake th' astounded sky!"

With which sufficiently bad verses Loyalty passed on, while my Lady

Bath hinted to Sir Richard, not without reason, that the poet, in

trying to exalt both parties, had very sufficiently snubbed both,

and intimated that it was "hardly safe for country wits to attempt

that euphuistic, antithetical, and delicately conceited vein, whose

proper fountain was in Whitehall." However, on went Loyalty, very

well pleased with himself, and next, amid much cheering, two great

tinsel fish, a salmon and a trout, symbolical of the wealth of

Torridge, waddled along, by means of two human legs and a staff

apiece, which protruded from the fishes' stomachs. They drew (or

seemed to draw, for half the 'prentices in the town were shoving it

behind, and cheering on the panting monarchs of the flood) a car

wherein sate, amid reeds and river-flags, three or four pretty

girls in robes of gray-blue spangled with gold, their heads

wreathed one with a crown of the sweet bog-myrtle, another with

hops and white convolvulus, the third with pale heather and golden

fern. They stopped opposite Amyas; and she of the myrtle wreath,

rising and bowing to him and the company, began with a pretty blush

to say her say:--

"Hither from my moorland home,

Nymph of Torridge, proud I come;

Leaving fen and furzy brake,

Haunt of eft and spotted snake,

Where to fill mine urns I use,

Daily with Atlantic dews;

While beside the reedy flood

Wild duck leads her paddling brood.

For this morn, as Phoebus gay

Chased through heaven the night mist gray,

Close beside me, prankt in pride,

Sister Tamar rose, and cried,

'Sluggard, up! 'Tis holiday,

In the lowlands far away.

Hark! how jocund Plymouth bells,

Wandering up through mazy dells,

Call me down, with smiles to hail,

My daring Drake's returning sail.'

'Thine alone?' I answer'd. 'Nay;

Mine as well the joy to-day.

Heroes train'd on Northern wave,

To that Argo new I gave;

Lent to thee, they roam'd the main;

Give me, nymph, my sons again.'

'Go, they wait Thee,' Tamar cried,

Southward bounding from my side.

Glad I rose, and at my call,

Came my Naiads, one and all.

Nursling of the mountain sky,

Leaving Dian's choir on high,

Down her cataracts laughing loud,

Ockment leapt from crag and cloud,

Leading many a nymph, who dwells

Where wild deer drink in ferny dells;

While the Oreads as they past

Peep'd from Druid Tors aghast.

By alder copses sliding slow,

Knee-deep in flowers came gentler Yeo

And paused awhile her locks to twine

With musky hops and white woodbine,

Then joined the silver-footed band,

Which circled down my golden sand,

By dappled park, and harbor shady,

Haunt of love-lorn knight and lady,

My thrice-renowned sons to greet,

With rustic song and pageant meet.

For joy! the girdled robe around

Eliza's name henceforth shall sound,

Whose venturous fleets to conquest start,

Where ended once the seaman's chart,

While circling Sol his steps shall count

Henceforth from Thule's western mount,

And lead new rulers round the seas

From furthest Cassiterides.

For found is now the golden tree,

Solv'd th' Atlantic mystery,

Pluck'd the dragon-guarded fruit;

While around the charmed root,

Wailing loud, the Hesperids

Watch their warder's drooping lids.

Low he lies with grisly wound,

While the sorceress triple-crown'd

In her scarlet robe doth shield him,

Till her cunning spells have heal'd him.

Ye, meanwhile, around the earth

Bear the prize of manful worth.

Yet a nobler meed than gold

Waits for Albion's children bold;

Great Eliza's virgin hand

Welcomes you to Fairy-land,

While your native Naiads bring

Native wreaths as offering.

Simple though their show may be,

Britain's worship in them see.

'Tis not price, nor outward fairness,

Gives the victor's palm its rareness;

Simplest tokens can impart

Noble throb to noble heart:

Graecia, prize thy parsley crown,

Boast thy laurel, Caesar's town;

Moorland myrtle still shall be

Badge of Devon's Chivalry!"

And so ending, she took the wreath of fragrant gale from her own

head, and stooping from the car, placed it on the head of Amyas

Leigh, who made answer--

"There is no place like home, my fair mistress and no scent to my

taste like this old home-scent in all the spice-islands that I ever

sailed by!"

"Her song was not so bad," said Sir Richard to Lady Bath--"but how

came she to hear Plymouth bells at Tamar-head, full fifty miles

away? That's too much of a poet's license, is it not?"

"The river-nymphs, as daughters of Oceanus, and thus of immortal

parentage, are bound to possess organs of more than mortal

keenness; but, as you say, the song was not so bad--erudite, as

well as prettily conceived--and, saving for a certain rustical

simplicity and monosyllabic baldness, smacks rather of the forests

of Castaly than those of Torridge."

So spake my Lady Bath; whom Sir Richard wisely answered not; for

she was a terribly learned member of the college of critics, and

disputed even with Sidney's sister the chieftaincy of the

Euphuists; so Sir Richard answered not, but answer was made for

him.

"Since the whole choir of Muses, madam, have migrated to the Court

of Whitehall, no wonder if some dews of Parnassus should fertilize

at times even our Devon moors."

The speaker was a tall and slim young man, some five-and-twenty

years old, of so rare and delicate a beauty, that it seemed that

some Greek statue, or rather one of those pensive and pious knights

whom the old German artists took delight to paint, had condescended

to tread awhile this work-day earth in living flesh and blood. The

forehead was very lofty and smooth, the eyebrows thin and greatly

arched (the envious gallants whispered that something at least of

their curve was due to art, as was also the exceeding smoothness of

those delicate cheeks). The face was somewhat long and thin; the

nose aquiline; and the languid mouth showed, perhaps, too much of

the ivory upper teeth; but the most striking point of the speaker's

appearance was the extraordinary brilliancy of his complexion,

which shamed with its whiteness that of all fair ladies round, save

where open on each cheek a bright red spot gave warning, as did the

long thin neck and the taper hands, of sad possibilities, perhaps

not far off; possibilities which all saw with an inward sigh,

except she whose doting glances, as well as her resemblance to the

fair youth, proclaimed her at once his mother, Mrs. Leigh herself.

Master Frank, for he it was, was dressed in the very extravagance

of the fashion,--not so much from vanity, as from that delicate

instinct of self-respect which would keep some men spruce and

spotless from one year's end to another upon a desert island;

"for," as Frank used to say in his sententious way, "Mr. Frank

Leigh at least beholds me, though none else be by; and why should I

be more discourteous to him than I permit others to be? Be sure

that he who is a Grobian in his own company, will, sooner or later,

become a Grobian in that of his friends."

So Mr. Frank was arrayed spotlessly; but after the latest fashion

of Milan, not in trunk hose and slashed sleeves, nor in "French

standing collar, treble quadruple daedalian ruff, or stiff-necked

rabato, that had more arches for pride, propped up with wire and

timber, than five London Bridges;" but in a close-fitting and

perfectly plain suit of dove-color, which set off cunningly the

delicate proportions of his figure, and the delicate hue of his

complexion, which was shaded from the sun by a broad dove-colored

Spanish hat, with feather to match, looped up over the right ear

with a pearl brooch, and therein a crowned E, supposed by the

damsels of Bideford to stand for Elizabeth, which was whispered to

be the gift of some most illustrious hand. This same looping up

was not without good reason and purpose prepense; thereby all the

world had full view of a beautiful little ear, which looked as if

it had been cut of cameo, and made, as my Lady Rich once told him,

"to hearken only to the music of the spheres, or to the chants of

cherubim." Behind the said ear was stuck a fresh rose; and the

golden hair was all drawn smoothly back and round to the left

temple, whence, tied with a pink ribbon in a great true lover's

knot, a mighty love-lock, "curled as it had been laid in press,"

rolled down low upon his bosom. Oh, Frank! Frank! have you come

out on purpose to break the hearts of all Bideford burghers'

daughters? And if so, did you expect to further that triumph by

dyeing that pretty little pointed beard (with shame I report it) of

a bright vermilion? But we know you better, Frank, and so does

your mother; and you are but a masquerading angel after all, in

spite of your knots and your perfumes, and the gold chain round

your neck which a German princess gave you; and the emerald ring on

your right fore-finger which Hatton gave you; and the pair of

perfumed gloves in your left which Sidney's sister gave you; and

the silver-hilted Toledo which an Italian marquis gave you on a

certain occasion of which you never choose to talk, like a prudent

and modest gentleman as you are; but of which the gossips talk, of

course, all the more, and whisper that you saved his life from

bravoes--a dozen, at the least; and had that sword for your reward,

and might have had his beautiful sister's hand beside, and I know

not what else; but that you had so many lady-loves already that you

were loath to burden yourself with a fresh one. That, at least, we

know to be a lie, fair Frank; for your heart is as pure this day as

when you knelt in your little crib at Burrough, and said--

"Four corners to my bed

Four angels round my head;

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,

Bless the bed that I lie on."

And who could doubt it (if being pure themselves, they have

instinctive sympathy with what is pure), who ever looked into those

great deep blue eyes of yours, "the black fringed curtains of whose

azure lids," usually down-dropt as if in deepest thought, you raise

slowly, almost wonderingly each time you speak, as if awakening

from some fair dream whose home is rather in your platonical

"eternal world of supra-sensible forms," than on that work-day

earth wherein you nevertheless acquit yourself so well? There--I

must stop describing you, or I shall catch the infection of your

own euphuism, and talk of you as you would have talked of Sidney or

of Spenser, or of that Swan of Avon, whose song had just begun when

yours--but I will not anticipate; my Lady Bath is waiting to give

you her rejoinder.

"Ah, my silver-tongued scholar! and are you, then, the poet? or

have you been drawing on the inexhaustible bank of your friend

Raleigh, or my cousin Sidney? or has our new Cygnet Immerito lent

you a few unpublished leaves from some fresh Shepherd's Calendar?"

"Had either, madam, of that cynosural triad been within call of my

most humble importunities, your ears had been delectate with far

nobler melody."

"But not our eyes with fairer faces, eh? Well, you have chosen

your nymphs, and had good store from whence to pick, I doubt not.

Few young Dulcineas round but must have been glad to take service

under so renowned a captain?"

"The only difficulty, gracious countess, has been to know where to

fix the wandering choice of my bewildered eyes, where all alike are

fair, and all alike facund."

"We understand," said she, smiling;--

"Dan Cupid, choosing 'midst his mother's graces,

Himself more fair, made scorn of fairest faces."

The young scholar capped her distich forthwith, and bowing to her

with a meaning look,

"'Then, Goddess, turn,' he cried, 'and veil thy light;

Blinded by thine, what eyes can choose aright?'"

"Go, saucy sir," said my lady, in high glee: "the pageant stays

your supreme pleasure."

And away went Mr. Frank as master of the revels, to bring up the

'prentices' pageant; while, for his sake, the nymph of Torridge was

forgotten for awhile by all young dames, and most young gentlemen:

and his mother heaved a deep sigh, which Lady Bath overhearing--

"What? in the dumps, good madam, while all are rejoicing in your

joy? Are you afraid that we court-dames shall turn your Adonis's

brain for him?"

"I do, indeed, fear lest your condescension should make him forget

that he is only a poor squire's orphan."

"I will warrant him never to forget aught that he should

recollect," said my Lady Bath.

And she spoke truly. But soon Frank's silver voice was heard

calling out--

"Room there, good people, for the gallant 'prentice lads!"

And on they came, headed by a giant of buckram and pasteboard

armor, forth of whose stomach looked, like a clock-face in a

steeple, a human visage, to be greeted, as was the fashion then, by

a volley of quips and puns from high and low.

Young Mr. William Cary, of Clovelly, who was the wit of those

parts, opened the fire by asking him whether he were Goliath,

Gogmagog, or Grantorto in the romance; for giants' names always

began with a G. To which the giant's stomach answered pretty

surlily--

"Mine don't; I begin with an O."

"Then thou criest out before thou art hurt, O cowardly giant!"

"Let me out, lads," quoth the irascible visage, struggling in his

buckram prison, "and I soon show him whether I be a coward."

"Nay, if thou gettest out of thyself, thou wouldst be beside

thyself, and so wert but a mad giant."

"And that were pity," said Lady Bath; "for by the romances, giants

have never overmuch wit to spare."

"Mercy, dear lady!" said Frank, "and let the giant begin with an O."

"A ----"

"A false start, giant! you were to begin with an O."

"I'll make you end with an O, Mr. William Cary!" roared the testy

tower of buckram.

"And so I do, for I end with 'Fico!'"

"Be mollified, sweet giant," said Frank, "and spare the rash youth

of yon foolish knight. Shall elephants catch flies, or Hurlo-

Thrumbo stain his club with brains of Dagonet the jester? Be

mollified; leave thy caverned grumblings, like Etna when its windy

wrath is past, and discourse eloquence from thy central omphalos,

like Pythoness ventriloquizing."

"If you do begin laughing at me too, Mr. Leigh ----" said the

giant's clock-face, in a piteous tone.

"I laugh not. Art thou not Ordulf the earl, and I thy humblest

squire? Speak up, my lord; your cousin, my Lady Bath, commands

you."

And at last the giant began:--

"A giant I, Earl Ordulf men me call,--

'Gainst Paynim foes Devonia's champion tall;

In single fight six thousand Turks I slew;

Pull'd off a lion's head, and ate it too:

With one shrewd blow, to let St. Edward in,

I smote the gates of Exeter in twain;

Till aged grown, by angels warn'd in dream,

I built an abbey fair by Tavy stream.

But treacherous time hath tripped my glories up,

The stanch old hound must yield to stancher pup;

Here's one so tall as I, and twice so bold,

Where I took only cuffs, takes good red gold.

From pole to pole resound his wondrous works,

Who slew more Spaniards than I e'er slew Turks;

I strode across the Tavy stream: but he

Strode round the world and back; and here 'a be!"

"Oh, bathos!" said Lady Bath, while the 'prentices shouted

applause. "Is this hedge-bantling to be fathered on you, Mr.

Frank?"

"It is necessary, by all laws of the drama, madam," said Frank,

with a sly smile, "that the speech and the speaker shall fit each

other. Pass on, Earl Ordulf; a more learned worthy waits."

Whereon, up came a fresh member of the procession; namely, no less

a person than Vindex Brimblecombe, the ancient schoolmaster, with

five-and-forty boys at his heels, who halting, pulled out his

spectacles, and thus signified his forgiveness of his whilom broken

head:--

"That the world should have been circumnavigated, ladies and

gentles, were matter enough of jubilation to the student of

Herodotus and Plato, Plinius and ---- ahem! much more when the

circumnavigators are Britons; more, again, when Damnonians."

"Don't swear, master," said young Will Cary.

"Gulielme Cary, Gulielme Cary, hast thou forgotten thy--"

"Whippings? Never, old lad! Go on; but let not the license of the

scholar overtop the modesty of the Christian."

"More again, as I said, when, incolae, inhabitants of Devon; but,

most of all, men of Bideford school. Oh renowned school! Oh

schoolboys ennobled by fellowship with him! Oh most happy

pedagogue, to whom it has befallen to have chastised a

circumnavigator, and, like another Chiron, trained another

Hercules: yet more than Hercules, for he placed his pillars on the

ocean shore, and then returned; but my scholar's voyage--"

"Hark how the old fox is praising himself all along on the sly,"

said Cary.

"Mr. William, Mr. william, peace;--silentium, my graceless pupil.

Urge the foaming steed, and strike terror into the rapid stag, but

meddle not with matters too high for thee."

"He has given you the dor now, sir," said Lady Bath; "let the old

man say his say."

"I bring, therefore, as my small contribution to this day's feast;

first a Latin epigram, as thus--"

"Latin? Let us hear it forthwith," cried my lady.

And the old pedant mouthed out--

"Torriguiam Tamaris ne spernat; Leighius addet

Mox terras terris, inclyte Drake, tuis."

"Neat, i' faith, la!" Whereon all the rest, as in duty bound,

approved also.

"This for the erudite: for vulgar ears the vernacular is more

consonant, sympathetic, instructive; as thus:--

"Famed Argo ship, that noble chip, by doughty Jason's steering,

Brought back to Greece the golden fleece, from Colchis home careering;

But now her fame is put to shame, while new Devonian Argo,

Round earth doth run in wake of sun, and brings wealthier cargo."

"Runs with a right fa-lal-la," observed Cary; "and would go nobly

to a fiddle and a big drum."

"Ye Spaniards, quake! our doughty Drake a royal swan is tested,

On wing and oar, from shore to shore, the raging main who breasted:--

But never needs to chant his deeds, like swan that lies a-dying,

So far his name, by trump of fame, around the sphere is flying."

"Hillo ho! schoolmaster!" shouted a voice from behind; "move on,

and make way for Father Neptune!" Whereon a whole storm of

raillery fell upon the hapless pedagogue.

"We waited for the parson's alligator, but we wain't for yourn."

"Allegory! my children, allegory!" shrieked the man of letters.

"What do ye call he an alligator for? He is but a poor little

starved evat!"

"Out of the road, old Custis! March on, Don Palmado!"

These allusions to the usual instrument of torture in West-country

schools made the old gentleman wince; especially when they were

followed home by--

"Who stole Admiral Grenville's brooms, because birch rods were

dear?"

But proudly he shook his bald head, as a bull shakes off the flies,

and returned to the charge once more.

"Great Alexander, famed commander, wept and made a pother,

At conquering only half the world, but Drake had conquer'd t'other;

And Hercules to brink of seas!--"

"Oh--!"

And clapping both hands to the back of his neck, the schoolmaster

began dancing frantically about, while his boys broke out

tittering, "O! the ochidore! look to the blue ochidore! Who've put

ochidore to maister's poll!"

It was too true: nea