CHAPTER III
OF TWO GENTLEMEN OF WALES, AND HOW THEY HUNTED WITH THE HOUNDS, AND YETRAN WITH THE DEER
"I know that Deformed; he has been a vile thief this seven years; he goes up and down like a gentleman: I remember his name."--Much Ado About Nothing.
Amyas slept that night a tired and yet a troubled sleep; and his motherand Frank, as they bent over his pillow, could see that his brain wasbusy with many dreams.
And no wonder; for over and above all the excitement of the day, therecollection of John Oxenham had taken strange possession of his mind;and all that evening, as he sat in the bay-windowed room where he hadseen him last, Amyas was recalling to himself every look and gestureof the lost adventurer, and wondering at himself for so doing, tillhe retired to sleep, only to renew the fancy in his dreams. At last hefound himself, he knew not how, sailing westward ever, up the wake ofthe setting sun, in chase of a tiny sail which was John Oxenham's.Upon him was a painful sense that, unless he came up with her in time,something fearful would come to pass; but the ship would not sail. Allaround floated the sargasso beds, clogging her bows with their longsnaky coils of weed; and still he tried to sail, and tried to fancy thathe was sailing, till the sun went down and all was utter dark. And thenthe moon arose, and in a moment John Oxenham's ship was close aboard;her sails were torn and fluttering; the pitch was streaming from hersides; her bulwarks were rotting to decay. And what was that line ofdark objects dangling along the mainyard?--A line of hanged men! And,horror of horrors, from the yard-arm close above him, John Oxenham'scorpse looked down with grave-light eyes, and beckoned and pointed, asif to show him his way, and strove to speak, and could not, and pointedstill, not forward, but back along their course. And when Amyas lookedback, behold, behind him was the snow range of the Andes glittering inthe moon, and he knew that he was in the South Seas once more, and thatall America was between him and home. And still the corpse kept pointingback, and back, and looking at him with yearning eyes of agony, and lipswhich longed to tell some awful secret; till he sprang up, and woke witha shout of terror, and found himself lying in the little coved chamberin dear old Burrough, with the gray autumn morning already stealing in.
Feverish and excited, he tried in vain to sleep again; and after anhour's tossing, rose and dressed, and started for a bathe on his belovedold pebble ridge. As he passed his mother's door, he could not helplooking in. The dim light of morning showed him the bed; but itspillow had not been pressed that night. His mother, in her long whitenight-dress, was kneeling at the other end of the chamber at herprie-dieu, absorbed in devotion. Gently he slipped in without a word,and knelt down at her side. She turned, smiled, passed her arm aroundhim, and went on silently with her prayers. Why not? They were for him,and he knew it, and prayed also; and his prayers were for her, and forpoor lost John Oxenham, and all his vanished crew.
At last she rose, and standing above him, parted the yellow locks fromoff his brow, and looked long and lovingly into his face. There wasnothing to be spoken, for there was nothing to be concealed betweenthese two souls as clear as glass. Each knew all which the other meant;each knew that its own thoughts were known. At last the mutual gaze wasover; she stooped and kissed him on the brow, and was in the act toturn away, as a tear dropped on his forehead. Her little bare feet werepeeping out from under her dress. He bent down and kissed them again andagain; and then looking up, as if to excuse himself,--
"You have such pretty feet, mother!"
Instantly, with a woman's instinct, she had hidden them. She had been abeauty once, as I said; and though her hair was gray, and her roses hadfaded long ago, she was beautiful still, in all eyes which saw deeperthan the mere outward red and white.
"Your dear father used to say so thirty years ago."
"And I say so still: you always were beautiful; you are beautiful now."
"What is that to you, silly boy? Will you play the lover with an oldmother? Go and take your walk, and think of younger ladies, if you canfind any worthy of you."
And so the son went forth, and the mother returned to her prayers.
He walked down to the pebble ridge, where the surges of the bay havedefeated their own fury, by rolling up in the course of ages a rampartof gray boulder-stones, some two miles long, as cunningly curved, andsmoothed, and fitted, as if the work had been done by human hands, whichprotects from the high tides of spring and autumn a fertile sheet ofsmooth, alluvial turf. Sniffing the keen salt air like a young sea-dog,he stripped and plunged into the breakers, and dived, and rolled, andtossed about the foam with stalwart arms, till he heard himself hailedfrom off the shore, and looking up, saw standing on the top of therampart the tall figure of his cousin Eustace.
Amyas was half-disappointed at his coming; for, love-lorn rascal, he hadbeen dreaming all the way thither of Rose Salterne, and had no wishfor a companion who would prevent his dreaming of her all the way back.Nevertheless, not having seen Eustace for three years, it was but civilto scramble out and dress, while his cousin walked up and down upon theturf inside.
Eustace Leigh was the son of a younger brother of Leigh of Burrough, whohad more or less cut himself off from his family, and indeed from hiscountrymen, by remaining a Papist. True, though born a Papist, he hadnot always been one; for, like many of the gentry, he had become aProtestant under Edward the Sixth, and then a Papist again under Mary.But, to his honor be it said, at that point he had stopped, havingtoo much honesty to turn Protestant a second time, as hundreds did, atElizabeth's accession. So a Papist he remained, living out of the wayof the world in a great, rambling, dark house, still called "Chapel,"on the Atlantic cliffs, in Moorwinstow parish, not far from Sir RichardGrenville's house of Stow. The penal laws never troubled him; for, inthe first place, they never troubled any one who did not make conspiracyand rebellion an integral doctrine of his religious creed; and next,they seldom troubled even them, unless, fired with the glory ofmartyrdom, they bullied the long-suffering of Elizabeth and her councilinto giving them their deserts, and, like poor Father Southwell inafter years, insisted on being hanged, whether Burleigh liked or not.Moreover, in such a no-man's-land and end-of-all-the-earth was that oldhouse at Moorwinstow, that a dozen conspiracies might have been hatchedthere without any one hearing of it; and Jesuits and seminary priestsskulked in and out all the year round, unquestioned though unblest; andfound a sort of piquant pleasure, like naughty boys who have creptinto the store-closet, in living in mysterious little dens in a lonelyturret, and going up through a trap-door to celebrate mass in a secretchamber in the roof, where they were allowed by the powers that were toplay as much as they chose at persecuted saints, and preach about hidingin dens and caves of the earth. For once, when the zealous parsonof Moorwinstow, having discovered (what everybody knew already) theexistence of "mass priests and their idolatry" at Chapel House, madeformal complaint thereof to Sir Richard, and called on him, as thenearest justice of the peace, to put in force the act of the fourteenthof Elizabeth, that worthy knight only rated him soundly for afantastical Puritan, and bade him mind his own business, if he wishednot to make the place too hot for him; whereon (for the temporalauthorities, happily for the peace of England, kept in those daysa somewhat tight hand upon the spiritual ones) the worthy parsonsubsided,--for, after all, Mr. Thomas Leigh paid his tithes regularlyenough,--and was content, as he expressed it, to bow his head in thehouse of Rimmon like Naaman of old, by eating Mr. Leigh's dinnersas often as he was invited, and ignoring the vocation of old FatherFrancis, who sat opposite to him, dressed as a layman, and callinghimself the young gentleman's pedagogue.
But the said birds of ill-omen had a very considerable lien on theconscience of poor Mr. Thomas Leigh, the father of Eustace, in the formof certain lands once belonging to the Abbey of Hartland. He more thanhalf believed that he should be lost for holding those lands; but he didnot believe it wholly, and, therefore, he did not give them up; whichwas the case, as poor Mary Tudor found to her sorrow, with most of her"Catholic" subjects, whose
consciences, while they compelled them toreturn to the only safe fold of Mother Church (extra quam nulla salus),by no means compelled them to disgorge the wealth of which they hadplundered that only hope of their salvation. Most of them, however, likepoor Tom Leigh, felt the abbey rents burn in their purses; and, as JohnBull generally does in a difficulty, compromised the matter by a secondfolly (as if two wrong things made one right one), and petted foreignpriests, and listened, or pretended not to listen, to their plottingsand their practisings; and gave up a son here, and a son there, as asort of a sin-offering and scapegoat, to be carried off to Douay, orRheims, or Rome, and trained as a seminary priest; in plain English, tobe taught the science of villainy, on the motive of superstition. One ofsuch hapless scapegoats, and children who had been cast into the fire toMoloch, was Eustace Leigh, whom his father had sent, giving the fruit ofhis body for the sin of his soul, to be made a liar of at Rheims.
And a very fair liar he had become. Not that the lad was a bad fellow atheart; but he had been chosen by the harpies at home, on account of his"peculiar vocation;" in plain English, because the wily priests had seenin him certain capacities of vague hysterical fear of the unseen (thereligious sentiment, we call it now-a-days), and with them that tendencyto be a rogue, which superstitious men always have. He was now a tall,handsome, light-complexioned man, with a huge upright forehead, a verysmall mouth, and a dry and set expression of face, which was alwaystrying to get free, or rather to seem free, and indulge in smiles anddimples which were proper; for one ought to have Christian love, andif one had love one ought to be cheerful, and when people were cheerfulthey smiled; and therefore he would smile, and tried to do so; but hischarity prepense looked no more alluring than malice prepense would havedone; and, had he not been really a handsome fellow, many a woman whoraved about his sweetness would have likened his frankness to that of askeleton dancing in fetters, and his smiles to the grins thereof.
He had returned to England about a month before, in obedience to theproclamation which had been set forth for that purpose (and certainlynot before it was needed), that, "whosoever had children, wards,etc., in the parts beyond the seas, should send in their names to theordinary, and within four months call them home again." So Eustace wasnow staying with his father at Chapel, having, nevertheless, his privatematters to transact on behalf of the virtuous society by whom hehad been brought up; one of which private matters had brought him toBideford the night before.
So he sat down beside Amyas on the pebbles, and looked at him all overout of the corners of his eyes very gently, as if he did not wish tohurt him, or even the flies on his back; and Amyas faced right round,and looked him full in the face with the heartiest of smiles, and heldout a lion's paw, which Eustace took rapturously, and a great shaking ofhands ensued; Amyas gripping with a great round fist, and a quiet quiverthereof, as much as to say, "I AM glad to see you;" and Eustace pinchinghard with white, straight fingers, and sawing the air violently up anddown, as much as to say, "DON'T YOU SEE how glad I am to see you?" Avery different greeting from the former.
"Hold hard, old lad," said Amyas, "before you break my elbow. And wheredo you come from?"
"From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down init," said he, with a little smile and nod of mysterious self-importance.
"Like the devil, eh? Well, every man has his pattern. How is my uncle?"
Now, if there was one man on earth above another, of whom Eustace Leighstood in dread, it was his cousin Amyas. In the first place, he knewAmyas could have killed him with a blow; and there are natures, who,instead of rejoicing in the strength of men of greater prowess thanthemselves, look at such with irritation, dread, at last, spite;expecting, perhaps, that the stronger will do to them what they feelthey might have done in his place. Every one, perhaps, has the sameenvious, cowardly devil haunting about his heart; but the brave men,though they be very sparrows, kick him out; the cowards keep him, andfoster him; and so did poor Eustace Leigh.
Next, he could not help feeling that Amyas despised him. They had notmet for three years; but before Amyas went, Eustace never could arguewith him, simply because Amyas treated him as beneath argument. No doubthe was often rude and unfair enough; but the whole mass of questionsconcerning the unseen world, which the priests had stimulated in hiscousin's mind into an unhealthy fungus crop, were to Amyas simply, as heexpressed it, "wind and moonshine;" and he treated his cousin as asort of harmless lunatic, and, as they say in Devon, "half-baked." AndEustace knew it; and knew, too, that his cousin did him an injustice."He used to undervalue me," said he to himself; "let us see whether hedoes not find me a match for him now." And then went off into an agonyof secret contrition for his self-seeking and his forgetting that"the glory of God, and not his own exaltation," was the object of hisexistence.
There, dear readers, Ex pede Herculem; I cannot tire myself or you(especially in this book) with any wire-drawn soul-dissections. I havetried to hint to you two opposite sorts of men,--the one trying to begood with all his might and main, according to certain approved methodsand rules, which he has got by heart, and like a weak oarsman, feelingand fingering his spiritual muscles over all day, to see if they aregrowing; the other not even knowing whether he is good or not, but justdoing the right thing without thinking about it, as simply as a littlechild, because the Spirit of God is with him. If you cannot see thegreat gulf fixed between the two, I trust that you will discover it someday.
But in justice be it said, all this came upon Eustace, not because hewas a Romanist, but because he was educated by the Jesuits. Had he beensaved from them, he might have lived and died as simple and honest agentleman as his brothers, who turned out like true Englishmen (as didall the Romish laity) to face the great Armada, and one of whom wasfighting at that very minute under St. Leger in Ireland, and as braveand loyal a soldier as those Roman Catholics whose noble blood hasstained every Crimean battlefield; but his fate was appointed otherwise;and the Upas-shadow which has blighted the whole Romish Church, blightedhim also.
"Ah, my dearest cousin!" said Eustace, "how disappointed I was thismorning at finding I had arrived just a day too late to witness yourtriumph! But I hastened to your home as soon as I could, and learningfrom your mother that I should find you here, hurried down to bid youwelcome again to Devon."
"Well, old lad, it does look very natural to see you. I often used tothink of you walking the deck o' nights. Uncle and the girls are allright, then? But is the old pony dead yet? And how's Dick the smith, andNancy? Grown a fine maid by now, I warrant. 'Slid, it seems half a lifethat I've been away.
"And you really thought of your poor cousin? Be sure that he, too,thought of you, and offered up nightly his weak prayers for your safety(doubtless, not without avail) to those saints, to whom would thatyou--"
"Halt there, coz. If they are half as good fellows as you and I takethem for, they'll help me without asking."
"They have helped you, Amyas."
"Maybe; I'd have done as much, I'm sure, for them, if I 'd been in theirplace."
"And do you not feel, then, that you owe a debt of gratitude to them;and, above all, to her, whose intercessions have, I doubt not, availedfor your preservation? Her, the star of the sea, the all-compassionateguide of the mariner?"
"Humph!" said Amyas. "Here's Frank; let him answer."
And, as he spoke, up came Frank, and after due greetings, sat downbeside them on the ridge.
"I say, brother, here's Eustace trying already to convert me; andtelling me that I owe all my luck to the Blessed Virgin's prayers forme.
"It may be so," said Frank; "at least you owe it to the prayers of thatmost pure and peerless virgin by whose commands you sailed; the sweetincense of whose orisons has gone up for you daily, and for whose sakeyou were preserved from flood and foe, that you might spread the fameand advance the power of the spotless championess of truth, and right,and freedom,--Elizabeth, your queen."
Amyas answered this rhapsody, which would have been then bothfashionab
le and sincere, by a loyal chuckle. Eustace smiled meekly, butanswered somewhat venomously nevertheless--
"I, at least, am certain that I speak the truth, when I call mypatroness a virgin undefiled."
Both the brothers' brows clouded at once. Amyas, as he lay on his backon the pebbles, said quietly to the gulls over his head--"I wonder whatthe Frenchman whose head I cut off at the Azores, thinks by now aboutall that."
"Cut off a Frenchman's head?" said Frank.
"Yes, faith; and so fleshed my maiden sword. I'll tell you. It wasin some tavern; I and George Drake had gone in, and there sat thisFrenchman, with his sword on the table, ready for a quarrel (I foundafterwards he was a noted bully), and begins with us loudly enough aboutthis and that; but, after awhile, by the instigation of the devil, whatdoes he vent but a dozen slanders against her majesty's honor, one atopof the other? I was ashamed to hear them, and I should be more ashamedto repeat them."
"I have heard enough of such," said Frank. "They come mostly throughlewd rascals about the French ambassador, who have been bred (God helpthem) among the filthy vices of that Medicean Court in which the Queenof Scots had her schooling; and can only perceive in a virtuous freedoma cloak for licentiousness like their own. Let the curs bark; Honi soitqui mal y pense is our motto, and shall be forever."
"But I didn't let the cur bark; for I took him by the ears, to show himout into the street. Whereon he got to his sword, and I to mine; and avery near chance I had of never bathing on the pebble ridge more; forthe fellow did not fight with edge and buckler, like a Christian, buthad some newfangled French devil's device of scryming and foining withhis point, ha'ing and stamping, and tracing at me, that I expected to befull of eyelet holes ere I could close with him."
"Thank God that you are safe, then!" said Frank. "I know that play wellenough, and dangerous enough it is."
"Of course you know it; but I didn't, more's the pity."
"Well, I'll teach it thee, lad, as well as Rowland Yorke himself,
'Thy fincture, carricade, and sly passata, Thy stramazon, and resolute stoccata, Wiping maudritta, closing embrocata, And all the cant of the honorable fencing mystery.'"
"Rowland Yorke? Who's he, then?"
"A very roystering rascal, who is making good profit in London just nowby teaching this very art of fence; and is as likely to have his mortalthread clipt in a tavern brawl, as thy Frenchman. But how did you escapehis pinking iron?"
"How? Had it through my left arm before I could look round; and at thatI got mad, and leapt upon him, and caught him by the wrist, and then hada fair side-blow; and, as fortune would have it, off tumbled his head onto the table, and there was an end of his slanders."
"So perish all her enemies!" said Frank; and Eustace, who had beentrying not to listen, rose and said--
"I trust that you do not number me among them?"
"As you speak, I do, coz," said Frank. "But for your own sake, letme advise you to put faith in the true report of those who have dailyexperience of their mistress's excellent virtue, as they have of thesun's shining, and of the earth's bringing forth fruit, and not in thetattle of a few cowardly back-stair rogues, who wish to curry favor withthe Guises. Come, we will say no more. Walk round with us by Appledore,and then home to breakfast."
But Eustace declined, having immediate business, he said, in Northamtown, and then in Bideford; and so left them to lounge for anotherhalf-hour on the beach, and then walk across the smooth sheet of turf tothe little white fishing village, which stands some two miles above thebar, at the meeting of the Torridge and the Taw.
Now it came to pass, that Eustace Leigh, as we have seen, told hiscousins that he was going to Northam: but he did not tell them thathis point was really the same as their own, namely, Appledore; and,therefore, after having satisfied his conscience by going as far as thevery nearest house in Northam village, he struck away sharp to the leftacross the fields, repeating I know not what to the Blessed Virgin allthe way; whereby he went several miles out of his road; and also, asis the wont of crooked spirits, Jesuits especially (as three centuriessufficiently testify), only outwitted himself. For his cousins goingmerrily, like honest men, along the straight road across the turf,arrived in Appledore, opposite the little "Mariner's Rest" Inn, just intime to see what Eustace had taken so much trouble to hide from them,namely, four of Mr. Thomas Leigh's horses standing at the door, held byhis groom, saddles and mail-bags on back, and mounting three of them,Eustace Leigh and two strange gentlemen.
"There's one lie already this morning," growled Amyas; "he told us hewas going to Northam."
"And we do not know that he has not been there," blandly suggestedFrank.
"Why, you are as bad a Jesuit as he, to help him out with such a fetch."
"He may have changed his mind."
"Bless your pure imagination, my sweet boy," said Amyas, laying hisgreat hand on Frank's head, and mimicking his mother's manner. "Isay, dear Frank, let's step into this shop and buy a penny-worth ofwhipcord."
"What do you want with whipcord, man?"
"To spin my top, to be sure."
"Top? how long hast had a top?"
"I'll buy one, then, and save my conscience; but the upshot of thissport I must see. Why may not I have an excuse ready made as well asMaster Eustace?"
So saying, he pulled Frank into the little shop, unobserved by the partyat the inn-door.
"What strange cattle has he been importing now? Look at thatthree-legged fellow, trying to get aloft on the wrong side. How he clawsat his horse's ribs, like a cat scratching an elder stem!"
The three-legged man was a tall, meek-looking person, who had bedizenedhimself with gorgeous garments, a great feather, and a sword so longand broad, that it differed little in size from the very thin and stiffshanks between which it wandered uncomfortably.
"Young David in Saul's weapons," said Frank. "He had better not go inthem, for he certainly has not proved them."
"Look, if his third leg is not turned into a tail! Why does not some onein charity haul in half-a-yard of his belt for him?"
It was too true; the sword, after being kicked out three or four timesfrom its uncomfortable post between his legs, had returned unconquered;and the hilt getting a little too far back by reason of the too greatlength of the belt, the weapon took up its post triumphantly behind,standing out point in air, a tail confest, amid the tittering of theostlers, and the cheers of the sailors.
At last the poor man, by dint of a chair, was mounted safely, while hisfellow-stranger, a burly, coarse-looking man, equally gay, and rathermore handy, made so fierce a rush at his saddle, that, like "vaultingambition who o'erleaps his selle," he "fell on t'other side:" or wouldhave fallen, had he not been brought up short by the shoulders of theostler at his off-stirrup. In which shock off came hat and feather.
"Pardie, the bulldog-faced one is a fighting man. Dost see, Frank? hehas had his head broken."
"That scar came not, my son, but by a pair of most Catholic andapostolic scissors. My gentle buzzard, that is a priest's tonsure."
"Hang the dog! O, that the sailors may but see it, and put him over thequay head. I've a half mind to go and do it myself."
"My dear Amyas," said Frank, laying two fingers on his arm, "thesemen, whosoever they are, are the guests of our uncle, and thereforethe guests of our family. Ham gained little by publishing Noah's shame;neither shall we, by publishing our uncle's."
"Murrain on you, old Franky, you never let a man speak his mind, andshame the devil."
"I have lived long enough in courts, old Amyas, without a murrain onyou, to have found out, first, that it is not so easy to shame thedevil; and secondly, that it is better to outwit him; and the only wayto do that, sweet chuck, is very often not to speak your mind at all.We will go down and visit them at Chapel in a day or two, and see if wecannot serve these reynards as the badger did the fox, when he found himin his hole, and could not get him out by evil savors."
"How then?"
"S
tuck a sweet nosegay in the door, which turned reynard's stomach atonce; and so overcame evil with good."
"Well, thou art too good for this world, that's certain; so we will gohome to breakfast. Those rogues are out of sight by now."
Nevertheless, Amyas was not proof against the temptation of going overto the inn-door, and asking who were the gentlemen who went with Mr.Leigh.
"Gentlemen of Wales," said the ostler, "who came last night in a pinnacefrom Milford-haven, and their names, Mr. Morgan Evans and Mr. EvanMorgans."
"Mr. Judas Iscariot and Mr. Iscariot Judas," said Amyas between histeeth, and then observed aloud, that the Welsh gentlemen seemed ratherpoor horsemen.
"So I said to Mr. Leigh's groom, your worship. But he says that thoseparts be so uncommon rough and mountainous, that the poor gentlemen, yousee, being enforced to hunt on foot, have no such opportunities as younggentlemen hereabout, like your worship; whom God preserve, and send avirtuous lady, and one worthy of you."
"Thou hast a villainously glib tongue, fellow!" said Amyas, who wasthoroughly out of humor; "and a sneaking down visage too, when I come tolook at you. I doubt but you are a Papist too, I do!"
"Well, sir! and what if I am! I trust I don't break the queen's laws bythat. If I don't attend Northam church, I pay my month's shilling forthe use of the poor, as the act directs; and beyond that, neither younor any man dare demand of me."
"Dare! act directs! You rascally lawyer, you! and whence does an ostlerlike you get your shilling to pay withal? Answer me." The examinatefound it so difficult to answer the question, that he suddenly becameafflicted with deafness.
"Do you hear?" roared Amyas, catching at him with his lion's paw.
"Yes, missus; anon, anon, missus!" quoth he to an imaginary landladyinside, and twisting under Amyas's hand like an eel, vanished into thehouse, while Frank got the hot-headed youth away.
"What a plague is one to do, then? That fellow was a Papist spy!"
"Of course he was!" said Frank.
"Then, what is one to do, if the whole country is full of them?"
"Not to make fools of ourselves about them, and so leave them to makefools of themselves."
"That's all very fine: but--well, I shall remember the villain's face ifI see him again."
"There is no harm in that," said Frank.
"Glad you think so."
"Don't quarrel with me, Amyas, the first day."
"Quarrel with thee, my darling old fellow! I had sooner kiss the dustoff thy feet, if I were worthy of it. So now away home; my inside criescupboard."
In the meanwhile Messrs. Evans and Morgans were riding away, as fastas the rough by-lanes would let them, along the fresh coast of the bay,steering carefully clear of Northam town on the one hand, and on theother, of Portledge, where dwelt that most Protestant justice of thepeace, Mr. Coffin. And it was well for them that neither Amyas Leigh,nor indeed any other loyal Englishman, was by when they entered, as theyshortly did, the lonely woods which stretch along the southern wall ofthe bay. For there Eustace Leigh pulled up short; and both he and hisgroom, leaping from their horses, knelt down humbly in the wet grass,and implored the blessing of the two valiant gentlemen of Wales,who, having graciously bestowed it with three fingers apiece, becamethenceforth no longer Morgan Evans and Evan Morgans, Welshmen andgentlemen; but Father Parsons and Father Gampian, Jesuits, and gentlemenin no sense in which that word is applied in this book.
After a few minutes, the party were again in motion, ambling steadilyand cautiously along the high table-land, towards Moorwinstow in thewest; while beneath them on the right, at the mouth of rich-woodedglens, opened vistas of the bright blue bay, and beyond it the sandhillsof Braunton, and the ragged rocks of Morte; while far away to the northand west the lonely isle of Lundy hung like a soft gray cloud.
But they were not destined to reach their point as peaceably as theycould have wished. For just as they got opposite Clovelly dike, the hugeold Roman encampment which stands about midway in their journey, theyheard a halloo from the valley below, answered by a fainter one farahead. At which, like a couple of rogues (as indeed they were), FatherCampian and Father Parsons looked at each other, and then both staredround at the wild, desolate, open pasture (for the country was then allunenclosed), and the great dark furze-grown banks above their heads; andCampian remarked gently to Parsons, that this was a very dreary spot,and likely enough for robbers.
"A likelier spot for us, Father," said Eustace, punning. "The old Romansknew what they were about when they put their legions up aloft here tooverlook land and sea for miles away; and we may thank them some day fortheir leavings. The banks are all sound; there is plenty of good waterinside; and" (added he in Latin), "in case our Spanish friends--youunderstand?"
"Pauca verba, my son!" said Campian: but as he spoke, up from the ditchclose beside him, as if rising out of the earth, burst through thefurze-bushes an armed cavalier.
"Pardon, gentlemen!" shouted he, as the Jesuit and his horse recoiledagainst the groom. "Stand, for your lives!"
"Mater caelorum!" moaned Campian; while Parsons, who, as all the worldknows, was a blustering bully enough (at least with his tongue), asked:What a murrain right had he to stop honest folks on the queen's highway?confirming the same with a mighty oath, which he set down as peccatumveniale, on account of the sudden necessity; nay, indeed fraus pia, asproper to support the character of that valiant gentleman of Wales, Mr.Evan Morgans. But the horseman, taking no notice of his hint, dashedacross the nose of Eustace Leigh's horse, with a "Hillo, old lad! whereridest so early?" and peering down for a moment into the ruts of thenarrow track-way, struck spurs into his horse, shouting, "A freshslot! right away for Hartland! Forward, gentlemen all! follow, follow,follow!"
"Who is this roysterer?" asked Parsons, loftily.
"Will Cary, of Clovelly; an awful heretic: and here come more behind."
And as he spoke four or five more mounted gallants plunged in and out ofthe great dikes, and thundered on behind the party; whose horses, quiteunderstanding what game was up, burst into full gallop, neighing andsquealing; and in another minute the hapless Jesuits were hurling alongover moor and moss after a "hart of grease."
Parsons, who, though a vulgar bully, was no coward, supported thecharacter of Mr. Evan Morgans well enough; and he would have reallyenjoyed himself, had he not been in agonies of fear lest those precioussaddle-bags in front of him should break from their lashings, androlling to the earth, expose to the hoofs of heretic horses, perhaps tothe gaze of heretic eyes, such a cargo of bulls, dispensations, secretcorrespondences, seditious tracts, and so forth, that at the verythought of their being seen, his head felt loose upon his shoulders. Butthe future martyr behind him, Mr. Morgan Evans, gave himself up at onceto abject despair, and as he bumped and rolled along, sought vainly forcomfort in professional ejaculations in the Latin tongue.
"Mater intemerata! Eripe me e--Ugh! I am down! Adhaesit pavimentoventer!--No! I am not! El dilectum tuum e potestate canis--Ah! Audistime inter cornua unicornium! Put this, too, down in--ugh!--thy account infavor of my poor--oh, sharpness of this saddle! Oh, whither, barbarousislanders!"
Now riding on his quarter, not in the rough track-way like a cockney,but through the soft heather like a sportsman, was a very gallant knightwhom we all know well by this time, Richard Grenville by name; who hadmade Mr. Cary and the rest his guests the night before, and then riddenout with them at five o'clock that morning, after the wholesome earlyways of the time, to rouse a well-known stag in the glens at Buckish, byhelp of Mr. Coffin's hounds from Portledge. Who being as good a Latineras Campian's self, and overhearing both the scraps of psalm and the"barbarous islanders," pushed his horse alongside of Mr. EustaceLeigh, and at the first check said, with two low bows towards the twostrangers--
"I hope Mr. Leigh will do me the honor of introducing me to his guests.I should be sorry, and Mr. Cary also, that any gentle strangers shouldbecome neighbors of ours, even for a day, without our knowing who theyare who honor o
ur western Thule with a visit; and showing them ourselvesall due requital for the compliment of their presence."
After which, the only thing which poor Eustace could do (especially asit was spoken loud enough for all bystanders), was to introduce in dueform Mr. Evan Morgans and Mr. Morgan Evans, who, hearing the name, and,what was worse, seeing the terrible face with its quiet searching eye,felt like a brace of partridge-poults cowering in the stubble, with ahawk hanging ten feet over their heads.
"Gentlemen," said Sir Richard blandly, cap in hand, "I fear that yourmails must have been somewhat in your way in this unexpected gallop. Ifyou will permit my groom, who is behind, to disencumber you of themand carry them to Chapel, you will both confer an honor on me, and beenabled yourselves to see the mort more pleasantly."
A twinkle of fun, in spite of all his efforts, played about good SirRichard's eye as he gave this searching hint. The two Welsh gentlemenstammered out clumsy thanks; and pleading great haste and fatigue froma long journey, contrived to fall to the rear and vanish with theirguides, as soon as the slot had been recovered.
"Will!" said Sir Richard, pushing alongside of young Cary.
"Your worship?"
"Jesuits, Will!"
"May the father of lies fly away with them over the nearest cliff!"
"He will not do that while this Irish trouble is about. Those fellowsare come to practise here for Saunders and Desmond."
"Perhaps they have a consecrated banner in their bag, the scoundrels!Shall I and young Coffin on and stop them? Hard if the honest men maynot rob the thieves once in a way."
"No; give the devil rope, and he will hang himself. Keep thy tongue athome, and thine eyes too, Will."
"How then?"
"Let Clovelly beach be watched night and day like any mousehole. No onecan land round Harty Point with these south-westers. Stop every fellowwho has the ghost of an Irish brogue, come he in or go he out, and sendhim over to me."
"Some one should guard Bude-haven, sir."
"Leave that to me. Now then, forward, gentlemen all, or the stag willtake the sea at the Abbey."
And on they crashed down the Hartland glens, through the oak-scrub andthe great crown-ferns; and the baying of the slow-hound and the tantarasof the horn died away farther and fainter toward the blue Atlantic,while the conspirators, with lightened hearts, pricked fast acrossBursdon upon their evil errand. But Eustace Leigh had other thoughtsand other cares than the safety of his father's two mysterious guests,important as that was in his eyes; for he was one of the many who haddrunk in sweet poison (though in his case it could hardly be calledsweet) from the magic glances of the Rose of Torridge. He had seen herin the town, and for the first time in his life fallen utterly in love;and now that she had come down close to his father's house, he looked onher as a lamb fallen unawares into the jaws of the greedy wolf, whichhe felt himself to be. For Eustace's love had little or nothing ofchivalry, self-sacrifice, or purity in it; those were virtues which werenot taught at Rheims. Careful as the Jesuits were over the practicalmorality of their pupils, this severe restraint had little effect inproducing real habits of self-control. What little Eustace had learnt ofwomen from them, was as base and vulgar as the rest of their teaching.What could it be else, if instilled by men educated in the schools ofItaly and France, in the age which produced the foul novels of Cinthioand Bandello, and compelled Rabelais in order to escape the rack andstake, to hide the light of his great wisdom, not beneath a bushel, butbeneath a dunghill; the age in which the Romish Church had mademarriage a legalized tyranny, and the laity, by a natural and pardonablerevulsion, had exalted adultery into a virtue and a science? That alllove was lust; that all women had their price; that profligacy, thoughan ecclesiastical sin, was so pardonable, if not necessary, as to behardly a moral sin, were notions which Eustace must needs have gatheredfrom the hints of his preceptors; for their written works bear to thisday fullest and foulest testimony that such was their opinion; and thattheir conception of the relation of the sexes was really not a whithigher than that of the profligate laity who confessed to them. Helonged to marry Rose Salterne, with a wild selfish fury; but only thathe might be able to claim her as his own property, and keep all othersfrom her. Of her as a co-equal and ennobling helpmate; as one in whosehonor, glory, growth of heart and soul, his own were inextricably wraptup, he had never dreamed. Marriage would prevent God from being angrywith that, with which otherwise He might be angry; and therefore thesanction of the Church was the more "probable and safe" course. But asyet his suit was in very embryo. He could not even tell whether Roseknew of his love; and he wasted miserable hours in maddening thoughts,and tost all night upon his sleepless bed, and rose next morning fierceand pale, to invent fresh excuses for going over to her uncle's house,and lingering about the fruit which he dared not snatch.
Westward Ho! Or, The Voyages and Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, of Burrough, in the County of Devon, in the Reign of Her Most Glorious Majesty Queen Elizabeth Page 3