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, - [e books for reading .TXT] 📗

Trying to shut his eyes to the palpable truth, he went on with his chat, asking the names of one building after another.

“And so this is old Father Thames, with his bank of palaces?”

“Yes. His banks are stately enough; yet, you see, he cannot stay to look at them. He hurries down to the sea; and the sea into the ocean; and the ocean Westward-ho, forever. All things move Westward-ho. Perhaps we may move that way ourselves some day, Amyas.”

“What do you mean by that strange talk?”

“Only that the ocean follows the primum mobile of the heavens, and flows forever from east to west. Is there anything so strange in my thinking of that, when I am just come from a party where we have been drinking success to Westward-ho?”

“And much good has come of it! I have lost the best friend and the noblest captain upon earth, not to mention all my little earnings, in that same confounded gulf of Westward-ho.”

“Yes, Sir Humphrey Gilbert's star has set in the West—why not? Sun, moon, and planets sink into the West: why not the meteors of this lower world? why not a will-o'-the-wisp like me, Amyas?”

“God forbid, Frank!”

“Why, then? Is not the West the land of peace, and the land of dreams? Do not our hearts tell us so each time we look upon the setting sun, and long to float away with him upon the golden-cushioned clouds? They bury men with their faces to the East. I should rather have mine turned to the West, Amyas, when I die; for I cannot but think it some divine instinct which made the ancient poets guess that Elysium lay beneath the setting sun. It is bound up in the heart of man, that longing for the West. I complain of no one for fleeing away thither beyond the utmost sea, as David wished to flee, and be at peace.”

“Complain of no one for fleeing thither?” asked Amyas. “That is more than I do.”

Frank looked inquiringly at him; and then—

“No. If I had complained of any one, it would have been of you just now, for seeming to be tired of going Westward-ho.”

“Do you wish me to go, then?”

“God knows,” said Frank, after a moment's pause. “But I must tell you now, I suppose, once and for all. That has happened at Bideford which—”

“Spare us both, Frank; I know all. I came through Bideford on my way hither; and came hither not merely to see you and my mother, but to ask your advice and her permission.”

“True heart! noble heart!” cried Frank. “I knew you would be stanch!”

“Westward-ho it is, then?”

“Can we escape?”

“We?”

“Amyas, does not that which binds you bind me?”

Amyas started back, and held Frank by the shoulders at arm's length; as he did so, he could feel through, that his brother's arms were but skin and bone.

“You? Dearest man, a month of it would kill you!”

Frank smiled, and tossed his head on one side in his pretty way.

“I belong to the school of Thales, who held that the ocean is the mother of all life; and feel no more repugnance at returning to her bosom again than Humphrey Gilbert did.”

“But, Frank,—my mother?”

“My mother knows all; and would not have us unworthy of her.”

“Impossible! She will never give you up!”

“All things are possible to them that believe in God, my brother; and she believes. But, indeed, Doctor Dee, the wise man, gave her but this summer I know not what of prognostics and diagnostics concerning me. I am born, it seems, under a cold and watery planet, and need, if I am to be long-lived, to go nearer to the vivifying heat of the sun, and there bask out my little life, like fly on wall. To tell truth, he has bidden me spend no more winters here in the East; but return to our native sea-breezes, there to warm my frozen lungs; and has so filled my mother's fancy with stories of sick men, who were given up for lost in Germany and France, and yet renewed their youth, like any serpent or eagle, by going to Italy, Spain, and the Canaries, that she herself will be more ready to let me go than I to leave her all alone. And yet I must go, Amyas. It is not merely that my heart pants, as Sidney's does, as every gallant's ought, to make one of your noble choir of Argonauts, who are now replenishing the earth and subduing it for God and for the queen; it is not merely, Amyas, that love calls me,—love tyrannous and uncontrollable, strengthened by absence, and deepened by despair; but honor, Amyas—my oath—”

And he paused for lack of breath, and bursting into a violent fit of coughing, leaned on his brother's shoulder, while Amyas cried,

“Fools, fools that we were—that I was, I mean—to take that fantastical vow!”

“Not so,” answered a gentle voice from behind: “you vowed for the sake of peace on earth, and good-will toward men, and 'Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.' No my sons, be sure that such self-sacrifice as you have shown will meet its full reward at the hand of Him who sacrificed Himself for you.”

“Oh, mother! mother!” said Amyas, “and do you not hate the very sight of me—come here to take away your first-born?”

“My boy, God takes him, and not you. And if I dare believe in such predictions, Doctor Dee assured me that some exceeding honor awaited you both in the West, to each of you according to your deserts.”

“Ah!” said Amyas. “My blessing, I suppose, will be like Esau's, to live by my sword; while Jacob here, the spiritual man, inherits the kingdom of heaven, and an angel's crown.”

“Be it what it may, it will surely be a blessing, as long as you are such, my children, as you have been. At least my Frank will be safe from the intrigues of court, and the temptations of the world. Would that I too could go with you, and share in your glory! Come, now,” said she, laying her head upon Amyas's breast, and looking up into his face with one of her most winning smiles, “I have heard of heroic mothers ere now who went forth with their sons to battle, and cheered them on to victory. Why should I not go with you on a more peaceful errand? I could nurse the sick, if there were any; I could perhaps have speech of that poor girl, and win her back more easily than you. She might listen to words from a woman—a woman, too, who has loved—which she could not hear from men. At