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] 📗

“But I loved you none the less, mother!”

“I know that, too: but you were busy with the men, you know, sweet; so your spirit could not come roving home like his, which was free. Yes—all as it should be. My maid, and do you not find it cold here in England, after those hot regions?”

“Ayacanora's heart is warm; she does not think about cold.”

“Warm? perhaps you will warm my heart for me, then.”

“Would God I could do it, mother!” said Amyas, half reproachfully.

Mrs. Leigh looked up in his face, and burst into a violent flood of tears.

“Sinful! sinful that I am!”

“Blessed creature!” cried Amyas, “if you speak so I shall go mad. Mother, mother, I have been dreading this meeting for months. It has been a nightmare hanging over me like a horrible black thunder-cloud; a great cliff miles high, with its top hid in the clouds, which I had to climb, and dare not. I have longed to leap overboard, and flee from it like a coward into the depths of the sea.—The thought that you might ask me whether I was not my brother's keeper—that you might require his blood at my hands—and now, now! when it comes! to find you all love, and trust, and patience—mother, mother, it's more than I can bear!” and he wept violently.

Mrs. Leigh knew enough of Amyas to know that any burst of this kind, from his quiet nature, betokened some very fearful struggle; and the loving creature forgot everything instantly, in the one desire to soothe him.

And soothe him she did; and home the two went, arm in arm together, while Ayacanora held fast, like a child, by the skirt of Mrs. Leigh's cloak. The self-help and daring of the forest nymph had given place to the trembling modesty of the young girl, suddenly cast on shore in a new world, among strange faces, strange hopes, and strange fears also.

“Will your mother love me?” whispered she to Amyas, as she went in.

“Yes; but you must do what she tells you.”

Ayacanora pouted.

“She will laugh at me, because I am wild.”

“She never laughs at any one.”

“Humph!” said Ayacanora. “Well, I shall not be afraid of her. I thought she would have been tall like you; but she is not even as big as me.”

This hardly sounded hopeful for the prospect of Ayacanora's obedience; but ere twenty-four hours had passed, Mrs. Leigh had won her over utterly; and she explained her own speech by saying that she thought so great a man ought to have a great mother. She had expected, poor thing, in her simplicity, some awful princess with a frown like Juno's own, and found instead a healing angel.

Her story was soon told to Mrs. Leigh, who of course, woman-like, would not allow a doubt as to her identity. And the sweet mother never imprinted a prouder or fonder kiss upon her son's forehead, than that with which she repaid his simple declaration, that he had kept unspotted, like a gentleman and a Christian, the soul which God had put into his charge.

“Then you have forgiven me, mother?”

“Years ago I said in this same room, what should I render to the Lord for having given me two such sons? And in this room I say it once again. Tell me all about my other son, that I may honor him as I honor you.”

And then, with the iron nerve which good women have, she made him give her every detail of Lucy Passmore's story and of all which had happened from the day of their sailing to that luckless night at Guayra. And when it was done, she led Ayacanora out, and began busying herself about the girl's comforts, as calmly as if Frank and Amyas had been sleeping in their cribs in the next room.

But she had hardly gone upstairs, when a loud knock at the door was followed by its opening hastily; and into the hall burst, regardless of etiquette, the tall and stately figure of Sir Richard Grenville.

Amyas dropped on his knees instinctively. The stern warrior was quite unmanned; and as he bent over his godson, a tear dropped from that iron cheek, upon the iron cheek of Amyas Leigh.

“My lad! my glorious lad! and where have you been? Get up, and tell me all. The sailors told me a little, but I must hear every word. I knew you would do something grand. I told your mother you were too good a workman for God to throw away. Now, let me have the whole story. Why, I am out of breath! To tell truth, I ran three-parts of the way hither.”

And down the two sat, and Amyas talked long into the night; while Sir Richard, his usual stateliness recovered, smiled stern approval at each deed of daring; and when all was ended, answered with something like a sigh:

“Would God that I had been with you every step! Would God, at least, that I could show as good a three-years' log-book, Amyas, my lad!”

“You can show a better one, I doubt not.”

“Humph! With the exception of one paltry Spanish prize, I don't know that the queen is the better, or her enemies the worse, for me, since we parted last in Dublin city.”

“You are too modest, sir.”

“Would that I were; but I got on in Ireland, I found, no better than my neighbors; and so came home again, to find that while I had been wasting my time in that land of misrule, Raleigh had done a deed to which I can see no end. For, lad, he has found (or rather his two captains, Amadas and Barlow, have found for him) between Florida and Newfoundland, a country, the like of which, I believe, there is not on the earth for climate and fertility. Whether there be gold there, I know not, and it matters little; for there is all else on earth that man can want; furs, timber, rivers, game, sugar-canes, corn, fruit, and every commodity which France, Spain, or Italy can yield, wild in abundance; the savages civil enough for savages, and, in a word, all which goes to the making of as noble a jewel as her majesty's crown can wear. The people call it Wingandacoa; but we, after her majesty, Virginia.”

“You have been there, then?”

“The year before last, lad; and left there Ralf Lane, Amadas, and some twenty gentlemen, and ninety men, and, moreover, some money of my own, and some of old Will Salterne's, which neither of us will ever see again. For the colony, I know not how, quarrelled with the Indians (I fear I too was over-sharp with some of them for stealing—if I was, God forgive me!), and could not, forsooth, keep themselves alive for twelve months; so that Drake, coming back from his last West Indian voyage, after giving them all the help he could, had to bring the whole party home. And if you will believe it, the faint-hearted fellows had not been gone a fortnight, before I was back again with three ships and all