Westward Ho! Part 23

"I hope no offence, Mr. William; but when are you and the rest going after--after her?" The name stuck in his throat.

Cary was taken aback.

"What's that to thee, Catiline the blood-drinker?" asked he, trying to laugh it off.

"What? Don't laugh at me, sir, for it's no laughing matter. I drank that night naught worse, I expect, than red wine. Whatever it was, we swore our oaths, Mr. Cary; and oaths are oaths, say I."

"Of course, Jack, of course; but to go to look for her--and when we've found her, cut her lover's throat. Absurd, Jack, even if she were worth looking for, or his throat worth cutting. Tut, tut, tut--"

But Jack looked steadfastly in his face, and after some silence: How far is it to the Caracas, then, sir?"

"What is that to thee, man?"

"Why, he was made governor thereof, I hear; so that would be the place to find her?"

"You don't mean to go thither to seek her?" shouted Cary, forcing a laugh.

"That depends on whether I can go, sir; but if I can sc.r.a.pe the money together, or get a berth on board some ship, why, G.o.d's will must be done."

Will looked at him, to see if he had been drinking, or gone mad; but the little pigs' eyes were both sane and sober.

Will knew no answer. To laugh at the poor fellow was easy enough; to deny that he was right, that he was a hero and cavalier, outdoing romance itself in faithfulness, not so easy; and Cary, in the first impulse, wished him at the bottom of the bay for shaming him. Of course, his own plan of letting ill alone was the rational, prudent, irreproachable plan, and just what any gentleman in his senses would have done; but here was a vulgar, fat curate, out of his senses, determined not to let ill alone, but to do something, as Cary felt in his heart, of a far diviner stamp.

"Well," said Jack, in his stupid steadfast way, "it's a very bad look-out; but mother's pretty well off, if father dies, and the maidens are stout wenches enough, and will make tidy servants, please the Lord. And you'll see that they come to no harm, Mr. William, for old acquaintance' sake, if I never come back."

Cary was silent with amazement.

"And, Mr. William, you know me for an honest man, I hope. Will you lend me a five pound, and take my books in p.a.w.n for them, just to help me out?"

"Are you mad, or in a dream? You will never find her!"

"That's no reason why I shouldn't do my duty in looking for her, Mr. William."

"But, my good fellow, even if you get to the Indies, you will be clapt into the Inquisition, and burnt alive, as sure as your name is Jack."

"I know that," said he, in a doleful tone; "and a sore struggle of the flesh I have had about it; for I am a great coward, Mr. William, a dirty coward, and always was, as you know: but maybe the Lord will take care of me, as He does of little children and drunken men; and if not, Mr. Will, I'd sooner burn, and have it over, than go on this way any longer, I would!" and Jack burst out blubbering.

"What way, my dear old lad?" said Will, softened as he well might be.

"Why, not--not to know whether--whether--whether she's married to him or not--her that I looked up to as an angel of G.o.d, as pure as the light of day; and knew she was too good for a poor pot-head like me; and prayed for her every night, G.o.d knows, that she might marry a king, if there was one fit for her--and I not to know whether she's living in sin or not, Mr. William.--It's more than I can bear, and there's an end of it. And if she is married to him they keep no faith with heretics; they can dissolve the marriage, or make away with her into the Inquisition; burn her, Mr. Cary, as soon as burn me, the devils incarnate!"

Cary shuddered; the fact, true and palpable as it was, had never struck him before.

"Yes! or make her deny her G.o.d by torments, if she hasn't done it already for love to that-- I know how love will make a body sell his soul, for I've been in love. Don't you laugh at me, Mr. Will, or I shall go mad!"

"G.o.d knows, I was never less inclined to laugh at you in my life, my brave old Jack."

"Is it so, then? Bless you for that word!" and Jack held out his hand. "But what will become of my soul, after my oath, if I don't seek her out, just to speak to her, to warn her, for G.o.d's sake, even if it did no good; just to set before her the Lord's curse on idolatry and Antichrist, and those who deny Him for the sake of any creature, though I can't think he would be hard on her,--for who could? But I must speak all the same. The Lord has laid the burden on me, and done it must be. G.o.d help me!"

"Jack," said Cary, "if this is your duty, it is others'."

"No, sir, I don't say that; you're a layman, but I am a deacon, and the chaplain of you all, and sworn to seek out Christ's sheep scattered up and down this naughty world, and that innocent lamb first of all."

"You have sheep at Hartland, Jack, already."

"There's plenty better than I will tend them, when I am gone; but none that will tend her, because none love her like me, and they won't venture. Who will? It can't be expected, and no shame to them?"

"I wonder what Amyas Leigh would say to all this, if he were at home?"

"Say? He'd do. He isn't one for talking. He'd go through fire and water for her, you trust him, Will Cary; and call me an a.s.s if he won't."

"Will you wait, then, till he comes back, and ask him?"

"He may not be back for a year and more."

"Hear reason, Jack. If you will wait like a rational and patient man, instead of rushing blindfold on your ruin, something may be done."

"You think so!"

"I cannot promise; but--"

"But promise me one thing. Do you tell Mr. Frank what I say--or rather, I'll warrant, if I knew the truth, he has said the very same thing himself already."

"You are out there, old man; for here is his own handwriting."

Jack read the letter and sighed bitterly. "Well, I did take him for another guess sort of fine gentleman. Still, if my duty isn't his, it's mine all the same. I judge no man; but I go, Mr. Cary."

"But go you shall not till Amyas returns. As I live, I will tell your father, Jack, unless you promise; and you dare not disobey him."

"I don't know even that, for conscience' sake," said Jack, doubtfully.

"At least, you stay and dine here, old fellow, and we will settle whether you are to break the fifth commandment or not, over good brewed sack."

Now a good dinner was (as we know) what Jack loved, and loved too oft in vain; so he submitted for the nonce, and Cary thought, ere he went, that he had talked him pretty well round. At least he went home, and was seen no more for a week.

But at the end of that time he returned, and said with a joyful voice-- "I have settled all, Mr. Will. The parson of Welcombe will serve my church for two Sundays, and I am away for London town, to speak to Mr. Frank."

"To London? How wilt get there?"

"On Shanks his mare," said Jack, pointing to his bandy legs. "But I expect I can get a lift on board of a coaster so far as Bristol, and it's no way on to signify, I hear."

Cary tried in vain to dissuade him; and then forced on him a small loan, with which away went Jack, and Cary heard no more of him for three weeks.

At last he walked into Clovelly Court again just before supper- time, thin and leg-weary, and sat himself down among the serving- men till Will appeared.

Will took him up above the salt, and made much of him (which indeed the honest fellow much needed), and after supper asked him in private how he had sped.

"I have learnt a lesson, Mr. William. I've learnt that there is one on earth loves her better than I, if she had but had the wit to have taken him."

"But what says he of going to seek her?"

"He says what I say, Go! and he says what you say, Wait."

"Go? Impossible! How can that agree with his letter?"

"That's no concern of mine. Of course, being nearer heaven than I am, he sees clearer what he should say and do than I can see for him. Oh, Mr. Will, that's not a man, he's an angel of G.o.d; but he's dying, Mr. Will."

"Dying?"

"Yes, faith, of love for her. I can see it in his eyes, and hear it in his voice; but I am of tougher hide and stiffer clay, and so you see I can't die even if I tried. But I'll obey my betters, and wait."

And so Jack went home to his parish that very evening, weary as he was, in spite of all entreaties to pa.s.s the night at Clovelly. But he had left behind him thoughts in Cary's mind, which gave their owner no rest by day or night, till the touch of a seeming accident made them all start suddenly into shape, as a touch of the freezing water covers it in an instant with crystals of ice.

He was lounging (so he told Amyas) one murky day on Bideford quay, when up came Mr. Salterne. Cary had shunned him of late, partly from delicacy, partly from dislike of his supposed hard- heartedness. But this time they happened to meet full; and Cary could not pa.s.s without speaking to him.

"Well, Mr. Salterne, and how goes on the shipping trade?"

"Well enough, sir, if some of you young gentlemen would but follow Mr. Leigh's example, and go forth to find us stay-at-homes new markets for our ware."

"What? you want to be rid of us, eh?"

"I don't know why I should, sir. We sha'n't cross each other now, sir, whatever might have been once. But if I were you, I should be in the Indies about now, if I were not fighting the queen's battles nearer home."

"In the Indies? I should make but a poor hand of Drake's trade." And so the conversation dropped; but Cary did not forget the hint.

"So, lad, to make an end of a long story," said he to Amyas; "if you are minded to take the old man's offer, so am I: and Westward- ho with you, come foul come fair."

"It will be but a wild-goose chase, Will."

"If she is with him, we shall find her at La Guayra. If she is not, and the villain has cast her off down the wind, that will be only an additional reason for making an example of him."

"And if neither of them are there, Will, the Plate-fleets will be; so it will be our own shame if we come home empty-handed. But will your father let you run such a risk?"

"My father!" said Cary, laughing. "He has just now so good hope of a long string of little Carys to fill my place, that he will be in no lack of an heir, come what will."

"Little Carys?"

"I tell you truth. I think he must have had a sly sup of that fountain of perpetual youth, which our friend Don Guzman's grandfather went to seek in Florida; for some twelvemonth since, he must needs marry a tenant's buxom daughter; and Mistress Abis.h.a.g Jewell has brought him one fat baby already. So I shall go, back to Ireland, or with you: but somewhere. I can't abide the thing's squalling, any more than I can seeing Mistress Abis.h.a.g sitting in my poor dear mother's place, and informing me every other day that she is come of an ill.u.s.trious house, because she is (or is not) third cousin seven times removed to my father's old friend, Bishop Jewell of glorious memory. I had three-parts of a quarrel with the dear old man the other day; for after one of her peac.o.c.k-bouts, I couldn't for the life of me help saying, that as the Bishop had written an Apology for the people of England, my father had better conjure up his ghost to write an apology for him, and head it, 'Why green heads should grow on gray shoulders.'"

"You impudent villain! And what did he say?"

Laughed till he cried again, and told me if I did not like it I might leave it; which is just what I intend to do. Only mind, if we go, we must needs take Jack Brimblecombe with us, or he will surely heave himself over Harty Point, and his ghost will haunt us to our dying day."

"Jack shall go. None deserves it better."

After which there was a long consultation on practical matters, and it was concluded that Amyas should go up to London and sound Frank and his mother before any further steps were taken. The other brethren of the Rose were scattered far and wide, each at his post, and St. Leger had returned to his uncle, so that it would be unfair to them, as well as a considerable delay, to demand of them any fulfilment of their vow. And, as Amyas sagely remarked, "Too many cooks spoil the broth, and half-a-dozen gentlemen aboard one ship are as bad as two kings of Brentford."

With which maxim he departed next morning for London, leaving Yeo with Cary.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE MOST CHIVALROUS ADVENTURE OF THE GOOD SHIP ROSE.

"He is bra.s.s within, and steel without, With beams on his topcastle strong; And eighteen pieces of ordinance He carries on either side along."

Sir Andrew Barton.

Let us take boat, as Amyas did, at Whitehall-stairs, and slip down ahead of him under old London Bridge, and so to Deptford Creek, where remains, as it were embalmed, the famous ship Pelican, in which Drake had sailed round the world. There she stands, drawn up high and dry upon the sedgy bank of Thames, like an old warrior resting after his toil. Nailed upon her mainmast are epigrams and verses in honor of her and of her captain, three of which, by the Winchester scholar, Camden gives in his History; and Elizabeth's self consecrated her solemnly, and having banqueted on board, there and then honored Drake with the dignity of knighthood. "At which time a bridge of planks, by which they came on board, broke under the press of people, and fell down with a hundred men upon it, who, notwithstanding, had none of them any harm. So as that ship may seem to have been built under a lucky planet."

There she has remained since as a show, and moreover as a sort of dining-hall for jovial parties from the city; one of which would seem to be on board this afternoon, to judge from the flags which bedizen the masts, the sounds of revelry and savory steams which issue from those windows which once were portholes, and the rushing to and fro along the river brink, and across that lucky bridge, of white-ap.r.o.ned waiters from the neighboring Pelican Inn. A great feast is evidently toward, for with those white-ap.r.o.ned waiters are gay serving men, wearing on their shoulders the city-badge. The lord mayor is giving a dinner to certain gentlemen of the Leicester house party, who are interested in foreign discoveries; and what place so fit for such a feast as the Pelican itself?

Look at the men all round; a n.o.bler company you will seldom see. Especially too, if you be Americans, look at their faces, and reverence them; for to them and to their wisdom you owe the existence of your mighty fatherland.

At the head of the table sits the lord mayor; whom all readers will recognize at once, for he is none other than that famous Sir Edward Osborne, clothworker, and ancestor of the dukes of Leeds, whose romance now-a-days is in every one's hands. He is aged, but not changed, since he leaped from the window upon London Bridge into the roaring tide below, to rescue the infant who is now his wife. The chivalry and prompt.i.tude of the 'prentice boy have grown and hardened into the thoughtful daring of the wealthy merchant adventurer. There he sits, a right kingly man, with my lord Earl of c.u.mberland on his right hand, and Walter Raleigh on his left; the three talk together in a low voice on the chance of there being vast and rich countries still undiscovered between Florida and the River of Canada. Raleigh's half-scientific declamation and his often quotations of Doctor Dee the conjuror, have less effect on Osborne than on c.u.mberland (who tried many an adventure to foreign parts, and failed in all of them; apparently for the simple reason that, instead of going himself, he sent other people), and Raleigh is fain to call to his help the quiet student who sits on his left hand, Richard Hakluyt, of Oxford. But he is deep in talk with a reverend elder, whose long white beard flows almost to his waist, and whose face is furrowed by a thousand storms; Anthony Jenkinson by name, the great Asiatic traveller, who is discoursing to the Christ-church virtuoso of reindeer sledges and Siberian steppes, and of the fossil ivory, plain proof of Noah's flood, which the Tungoos dig from the ice-cliffs of the Arctic sea. Next to him is Christopher Carlile, Walsingham's son-in-law (as Sidney also is now), a valiant captain, afterwards general of the soldiery in Drake's triumphant West Indian raid of 1585, with whom a certain Bishop of Carthagena will hereafter drink good wine. He is now busy talking with Alderman Hart the grocer, Sheriff Spencer the clothworker, and Charles Leigh (Amyas's merchant-cousin), and with Aldworth the mayor of Bristol, and William Salterne, alderman thereof, and cousin of our friend at Bideford. For Carlile, and Secretary Walsingham also, have been helping them heart and soul for the last two years to collect money for Humphrey and Adrian Gilbert's great adventures to the North-West, on one of which Carlile was indeed to have sailed himself, but did not go after all; I never could discover for what reason.

On the opposite side of the table is a group, scarcely less interesting. Martin Frobisher and John Davis, the pioneers of the North-West pa.s.sage, are talking with Alderman Sanderson, the great geographer and "setter forth of globes;" with Mr. Towerson, Sir Gilbert Peckham, our old acquaintance Captain John Winter, and last, but not least, with Philip Sidney himself, who, with his accustomed courtesy; has given up his rightful place toward the head of the table that he may have a knot of virtuosi all to himself; and has brought with him, of course, his two especial intimates, Mr. Edward Dyer and Mr. Francis Leigh. They too are talking of the North-West pa.s.sage: and Sidney is lamenting that he is tied to diplomacy and courts, and expressing his envy of old Martin Frobisher in all sorts of pretty compliments; to which the other replies that, "It's all very fine to talk of here, a sailing on dry land with a good gla.s.s of wine before you; but you'd find it another guess sort of business, knocking about among the icebergs with your beard frozen fast to your ruff, Sir Philip, specially if you were a bit squeamish about the stomach."

"That were a slight matter to endure, my dear sir, if by it I could win the honor which her majesty bestowed on you, when her own ivory hand waved a farewell 'kerchief to your ship from the windows of Greenwich Palace."

"Well, sir, folks say you have no reason to complain of lack of favors, as you have no reason to deserve lack; and if you can get them by staying ash.o.r.e, don't you go to sea to look for more, say I. Eh, Master Towerson?"

Towerson's gray beard, which has stood many a foreign voyage, both fair and foul, wags grim a.s.sent. But at this moment a Waiter enters, and-- "Please my lord mayor's worship, there is a tall gentleman outside, would speak with the Right Honorable Sir Walter Raleigh."

"Show him in, man. Sir Walter's friends are ours."

Amyas enters, and stands hesitating in the doorway.

"Captain Leigh!" cry half a-dozen voices.

"Why did you not walk in, sir?" says...o...b..rne. "You should know your way well enough between these decks."

"Well enough, my lords and gentlemen. But, Sir Walter--you will excuse me"--and he gave Raleigh a look which was enough for his quick wit. Turning pale as death, he rose, and followed Amyas into an adjoining cabin. They were five minutes together; and then Amyas came out alone.

In few words he told the company the sad story which we already know. Ere it was ended, n.o.ble tears were glistening on some of those stern faces.

"The old Egyptians," said Sir Edward Osborne, "when they banqueted, set a corpse among their guests, for a memorial of human vanity. Have we forgotten G.o.d and our own weakness in this our feast, that He Himself has sent us thus a message from the dead?"

"Nay, my lord mayor," said Sidney, "not from the dead, but from the realm of everlasting life."

"Amen!" answered Osborne. "But, gentlemen, our feast is at an end. There are those here who would drink on merrily, as brave men should, in spite of the private losses of which they have just had news; but none here who can drink with the loss of so great a man still ringing in his ears."