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] 📗

great shakes of a man to look to nether; there's a sight better here, to plase me, and we was disappointed, we lads, for we surely expected to see mun with a goolden crown on, and a sceptre to a's hand, we did, and the ship o' mun all over like Solomon's temple for gloory. And I mind that same year, too, seeing Vasco da Gama, as was going out over the bar, when he found the Bona Speranza, and sailed round it to the Indies. Ah, that was the making of they rascally Portingals, it was! . . . And our crew told what they seen and heerd: but nobody minded sich things. 'Twas dark parts, and Popish, then; and nobody knowed nothing, nor got no schooling, nor cared for nothing, but scrattling up and down alongshore like to prawns in a pule. Iss, sitting in darkness, we was, and the shadow of death, till the day-spring from on high arose, and shined upon us poor out-o'-the-way folk—The Lord be praised! And now, look to mun!” and he waved his hand all round—“Look to mun! Look to the works of the Lord! Look to the captains! Oh blessed sight! And one's been to the Brazils, and one to the Indies, and the Spanish Main, and the North-West, and the Rooshias, and the Chinas, and up the Straits, and round the Cape, and round the world of God, too, bless His holy name; and I seed the beginning of it; and I'll see the end of it too, I will! I was born into the old times: but I'll see the wondrous works of the new, yet, I will! I'll see they bloody Spaniards swept off the seas before I die, if my old eyes can reach so far as outside the Sound. I shall, I knows it. I says my prayers for it every night; don't I, Mary? You'll bate mun, sure as Judgment, you'll bate mun! The Lord'll fight for ye. Nothing'll stand against ye. I've seed it all along—ever since I was with young master to the Honduras. They can't bide the push of us! You'll bate mun off the face of the seas, and be masters of the round world, and all that therein is. And then, I'll just turn my old face to the wall, and depart in peace, according to his word.

“Deary me, now, while I've been telling with you, here've this little maid been and ate up all my sugar!”

“I'll bring you some more,” said Amyas; whom the childish bathos of the last sentence moved rather to sighs than laughter.

“Will ye, then? There's a good soul, and come and tell with old Martin. He likes to see the brave young gentlemen, a-going to and fro in their ships, like Leviathan, and taking of their pastime therein. We had no such ships to our days. Ah, 'tis grand times, beautiful times surely—and you'll bring me a bit sugar?”

“You were up the Plate with Cabot?” said Cary, after a pause. “Do you mind the fair lady Miranda, Sebastian de Hurtado's wife?”

“What! her that was burnt by the Indians? Mind her? Do you mind the sun in heaven? Oh, the beauty! Oh, the ways of her! Oh, the speech of her! Never was, nor never will be! And she to die by they villains; and all for the goodness of her! Mind her? I minded naught else when she was on deck.”

“Who was she?” asked Amyas of Cary.

“A Spanish angel, Amyas.”

“Humph!” said Amyas. “So much the worse for her, to be born into a nation of devils.”

“They'em not all so bad as that, yer honor. Her husband was a proper gallant gentleman, and kind as a maid, too, and couldn't abide that De Solis's murderous doings.”

“His wife must have taught it him, then,” said Amyas, rising. “Where did you hear of these black swans, Cary?”

“I have heard of them, and that's enough,” answered he, unwilling to stir sad recollections.

“And little enough,” said Amyas. “Will, don't talk to me. The devil is not grown white because he has trod in a lime-heap.”

“Or an angel black because she came down a chimney,” said Cary; and so the talk ended, or rather was cut short; for the talk of all the groups was interrupted by an explosion from old John Hawkins.

“Fail? Fail? What a murrain do you here, to talk of failing? Who made you a prophet, you scurvy, hang-in-the-wind, croaking, white-livered son of a corby-crow?”

“Heaven help us, Admiral Hawkins, who has put fire to your culverins in this fashion?” said Lord Howard.

“Who? my lord! Croakers! my lord! Here's a fellow calls himself the captain of a ship, and her majesty's servant, and talks about failing, as if he were a Barbican loose-kirtle trying to keep her apple-squire ashore! Blurt for him, sneak-up! say I.”

“Admiral John Hawkins,” quoth the offender, “you shall answer this language with your sword.”

“I'll answer it with my foot; and buy me a pair of horn-tips to my shoes, like a wraxling man. Fight a croaker? Fight a frog, an owl! I fight those that dare fight, sir!”

“Sir, sir, moderate yourself. I am sure this gentleman will show himself as brave as any, when it comes to blows: but who can blame mortal man for trembling before so fearful a chance as this?”

“Let mortal man keep his tremblings to himself, then, my lord, and not be like Solomon's madmen, casting abroad fire and death, and saying, it is only in sport. There is more than one of his kidney, your lordship, who have not been ashamed to play Mother Shipton before their own sailors, and damp the poor fellows' hearts with crying before they're hurt, and this is one of them. I've heard him at it afore, and I'll present him, with a vengeance, though I'm no church-warden.”

“If this is really so, Admiral Hawkins—”

“It is so, my lord! I heard only last night, down in a tavern below, such unbelieving talk as made me mad, my lord; and if it had not been after supper, and my hand was not oversteady, I would have let out a pottle of Alicant from some of their hoopings, and sent them to Dick Surgeon, to wrap them in swaddling-clouts, like whining babies as they are. Marry come up, what says Scripture? 'He that is fearful and faint-hearted among you, let him go and'—what? son Dick there? Thou'rt pious, and read'st thy Bible. What's that text? A mortal fine one it is, too.”

“'He that is fearful and faint-hearted among you, let him go back,'” quoth the Complete Seaman. “Captain Merryweather, as my father's command, as well as his years, forbid his answering your challenge, I shall repute it an honor to entertain his quarrel myself—place, time, and weapons being at your choice.”

“Well spoken, son Dick!—and like a true courtier, too! Ah! thou hast the palabras, and the knee, and the cap, and the quip, and the innuendo, and the true town fashion of it all—no old tarry-breeks of a sea-dog, like thy dad! My lord, you'll let them fight?”

“The Spaniard, sir; but no one else. But, captains and gentlemen, consider well my friend the Port Admiral's advice; and if any man's heart misgives him, let him, for the sake of his country and his queen, have so much government of his tongue to hide his fears in his own bosom,