The Great Captain Part 5

Then, broken-hearted, the lion of England at last turned his back on his promised land and set sail for England to meet his death at last. He had better have died fighting the Spaniards, yet that his men would not permit; and I think none of them guessed that they brought him home to his death.

CHAPTER VIII.-AN UNRAVELLED THREAD.

Once again we were in the dolorous Tower, and this time there was no returning. They arrested him at Plymouth on the moment of his landing.

As though they could never slay him fast enough, he was put on his trial and found guilty of abusing the King's confidence and injuring the subjects of Spain, and condemned to death on the old sentence.

Perhaps they thought if they were not speedy that the people would not suffer it. To kill a Raleigh was better sport than witch-burning, yet they hardly paused from their torture of innocent crones and helpless girls to see the lion die. One grace they gave him-that his body was to be spared the last indignities and to be handed over to his wife for burial where she would. "It is well, Bess," he said to her, rallying her, "thou mayst dispose of that dead which thou hadst not always the disposal of when living."

The last night he lived he spoke with me of my birth. I then told him that I had held the secret all those years. "Yet you stayed, Wat," he said gently, "though I was the enemy of your people."

"But ever my most dear and admired lord," I made answer.

Then he told me how he had always intended that I should have his portion of the Desmond inheritance, together with certain jewels and plate which he had hidden in a secret place in the garden at Youghall; but he had been obliged by sore necessity to give six thousand acres to the Lord Boyle, who was now Earl of Cork. Another six thousand the Lord Boyle was to hold in trust for me. "The deeds are safe," he said, "and he is bound fast. If he will not disgorge, you must even make him."

"Alas, to what end?" I asked, "seeing that by my name I am an outlawed man."

"You might be the King's Fitzmaurice," he said, hesitatingly.

"My dear lord," I made answer, "tomorrow morn I am done with earthly hopes. Am I one to go to court, or to present myself to my people, if people I yet possess?"

"Why, Wat," he said gently, "I think others might love that seamed face of yours since I do so greatly. What will you do? Will you comfort my lady?"

"If she needs me," I made answer.

"I think she will go to her own folk," he said.

"Then I shall be free to do what I will."

"And that, Wat?"

"Seek out a hermitage far from the world."

"It is truest wisdom," he said. "I was not born to be quiet or else I might wish that I had found wisdom in my time."

But he asked me nothing more of what I meant to do, although he placed the deeds in my hands to carry to the Lord Boyle. I think he had so done with this world that but for his lady's sake he had been glad his doom was at hand. Think on it! He had been twelve years in that Tower, who could never abide the least shackle, however gentle.

While yet I was with him he writ this verse and gave it me with a smile:

Even such is He that takes in trust Our youth, our joys, our all we have And pays us but with earth and dust; Who in the dark and silent grave, When we have wandered all our ways Shuts up the story of our days; But from this earth, this grave, this dust, My G.o.d shall raise me up, I trust.

The next morning I helped to caparison him as for his wedding. Such gay trappings for death were never seen, such rose-pink silk, bediamonded, such white velvet, such white leathern shoes with rosettes of rubies.

Then once again I saw my lord young and glad, and so full of jests that it grieved the good Dean of Westminster to hear him, for he thought it a light spirit in which to meet death.

Throngs of people crowded the palace-yard of Westminster to see him for the last time. He smiled upon them happily while he spoke his farewells to them.

"I thank G.o.d," he said, "that He hath brought me into the light to die, and hath not suffered me to die in the dark prison of the Tower, where I have known a great deal of misery and sickness. And I thank G.o.d that my fever hath not taken me at this time, as I prayed Him it might not, that I might clear myself of some accusations laid to my charge unjustly, and leave behind me the testimony of a true heart both to my King and country." Then he held the crowd spellbound while he spoke in his defence, and when he had finished, none moved, but they all pressed closer to him as though they could not bear to leave him.

At last he sent them away himself. "I have a long journey to go," he said, "therefore must I take my leave of you."

Afterwards he tried the temper of the axe, pa.s.sing his finger along the edge. "'Tis a sharp medicine," he said; "but one that will cure me of all my diseases."

The sheriff asked him which way he would lay himself upon the block. "So as the heart be right," he said, "it matters not which way the head lies." Then he laid himself down; and since the headsman feared to strike, and well he might fear, my lord himself hurried him. "Strike, man, strike!" he cried; and in an instant the n.o.blest head in England rolled upon the ground.

So ended the glorious Sir Walter Raleigh; and musing on that end and on the wrongs he suffered at the hands of Queen Elizabeth, I am often led to wonder that men should raise kings and queens over them to work such ill. For it seems to me that the great days of England were not made by Elizabeth Tudor or Harry, her sire, but by the great men who stood around them, and whom so often they sent to their death. Raleigh followed Ess.e.x by a s.p.a.ce of less than a score years, both suffering execution; and I pray that in another world these two are friends who jostled each other in this, but came alike to the headsman's block. The Tudors were too fond of beheading; but they, at least, sent their friends to the block and took the shame. I notice in these Stuarts something more treacherous-that they permit the slaying, and then will rend their garments.

However, what have I to do with bitterness? No sooner was my lord laid in the grave than I set out to visit my Lord Boyle; and being a great man now, his name carried me safely where I had not gone without. He received me with great honor as a friend of Sir Walter Raleigh, and entertained me well; but never a word he spoke concerning that trust.

However, I will not wrong him, for I left him after all without saying farewell. I was little minded to dispute with him the possession of those acres; but I paid a visit by stealth to the garden of the Manor-house, and there dug up the treasure of which Sir Walter had warned me, and conveyed it privily on board my vessel.

It had to be done piecemeal, for I trusted none but myself; but when my sea-chests held all those chalices and monstrances and golden candlesticks, we weighed anchor one night of storm, and sailed from Youghall without so much as farewell to my Lord Boyle. However, it comforted him doubtless that I never spoke of the trust, but disappeared from his world that stormy night as though I had gone on a witch's broomstick.

I had fain given mine uncle's bones burial, but that might not be; so I left him in the consecrated place where he had lain so many years-to the birds of heaven and the angels.

But for myself, I and my sea-chests were put ash.o.r.e at a little French town, from whence in due time I made my way to Douai, and restored the treasure to Her from whom it had been taken. And since Tyburn Tree had so greatly added to the glorious throng of the martyrs, and the ranks were thinned of those who would follow in their footsteps, I asked the Fathers of the English College to accept me among them, which of their graciousness they did; for I was grown sick of the world. And who cares that Father Walter is pock-pitted and hath one blind eye?

Once I had cared only to be of the flower of knighthood. Now all my dream is that I might some day earn that greeting of St. Philip to my forerunners in these gray halls-_Salvete, flos martyrum_!