first. And really it was difficult to find out;—it perplexed him. There
he sat, feeling as though some weighty, half-guilty secret lay upon his
heart, something that he was almost acting a traitor’s part in keeping
hidden there, and carrying away with him unconfessed. Yet, when he sought
for words in which to tell it, _what_ had he to say? Only that upon every
excuse (and often indeed without excuse), he used to loiter about the
stall of the village blacksmith—once a seaman, and sharer in some of
old John Hawkins’ most desperate enterprises;—that he was never tired
of listening to his wonderful tales of daring deeds wrought by English
hearts and hands upon the high seas, where the small, slight vessels of
English merchantmen so often measured their strength against the stately
caraques of the Don;—that he cared little to ride anywhere save to the
crest of the hill, whence he could see the far-off waters sparkle in the
sunlight, and sometimes watch a white sail gliding slowly by, wondering
if it was bound for that great mysterious West, the land of his romance
and enchantment. That was all he could find to say; and what was there in
that to trouble his mother with at midnight?
But beneath there was a blind, dumb instinct, a great passionate longing,
for which he had no words. Perhaps it was a heritage from some far-off
Viking ancestor, whose slender, snake-like galley had pushed its prow
into unknown seas in search of fame and plunder. Walter had no names for
the thoughts and feelings that for more than a year had been troubling
him so strangely, growing every day more frequent and more keen. He
only knew that he would have given all the world to change his fine
cloth and velvet for a pea-jacket, his Holland shirt for a Jersey, his
scholar’s pen for a stout cutlass. But what use in crying for the moon?
Work of a different sort was cut out for him. To-morrow he must go to
London, to visit his kinsfolk in the city; and after that to Oxford, to
study hard (he liked study well enough, when ships were not sailing away
westward before his mind’s eye), to win honour, fame, and wealth, and at
last—perhaps—if God willed and made him worthy—to take holy orders and
preach, like Sir John Carr.
What folly he had been thinking! He felt quite ashamed of himself. He
would go to bed, sleep, and forget it all. The sooner the better, for the
nights were cold (it was early March); he should freeze if he sat there
much longer. He must rise before daybreak; but he was sure old Dickon
would call him in good time; _he_ was never late.
So Walter Grey paid the tribute of a sigh to his boyish dreams; then he
went to bed and to sleep, nevertheless he did not forget them all.
XXII.
His Own Way.
“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.”
_Westward Ho!_
Walter had not been long asleep, when loud knocking at the great door
awaked him. Saying to himself, “They might knock till Doomsday for old
Dickon—early to bed and early to rise is his motto,” he rose, and putting
on his clothes hastily, went to see who was there.
It was Sir John Carr, who good-naturedly had ridden two or three
miles out of his way from the neighbouring town to bring Mrs. Grey a
letter, left there for her by means of that as yet rude and primitive
institution, “Her Majesty’s Post.” It would seem, indeed, that common
humanity demanded this service, since the letter bore the following
quaint addition to the ordinary superscription:—“Haste! Haste! Haste!
Post, haste for thy life! See thou tarry not!”
Walter, reading this, and not being aware that such exhortations were
quite customary, “by reason that the posts be so slow nowadays,” brought
the letter in some alarm to his mother, who, late as the hour was, had
not yet retired to rest. “I fear there is something wrong with my uncle’s
folk,” he said.
Mrs. Grey broke the seal and read in silence. “All is well, thank God,”
she answered. “But your uncle feared the letter might not come till after
you had gone. There is a ship, in which he hath a venture, lying at
Sheerness, and now ready to go up to London. And he thinks it will save
expense and trouble for you to ride thither, and take advantage of the
ship.”
“I have no objection,” cried the delighted Walter. “And indeed, mother,
for that matter—,” he continued, with a flushed face and nervous air.
But just at that moment Mrs. Grey’s little oil lamp went out suddenly, so
she did not see the boy’s face. And she knew it was past midnight, that
Walter ought to be in the saddle by five in the morning, and that young
eyes need long sleep. So she kissed him, and bade him go to bed at once.
Walter’s happiness may be guessed when, in due course, he found himself
at last on board a real ship. The _Royal Tudor_ was a Turkey-merchantman,
just returned from the Levant, well laden with the rich silks and
cashmeres of the East. But she was something more. Great guns showed
their black muzzles from her port-holes, and stem and stern were
garnished with what, to Walter’s inexperienced eye, looked like
fortresses, small but strong. Every man on board was a soldier, prepared
to do and die in defence of the ship and the ship’s freight. The “_Noli
me tangere_” of the Scottish thistle would have been an apt motto for
the English ship; though the converse, “I will not touch you,” would
have been far from applicable. Woe to the trader or man-of-war—whether
Spanish, Flemish, or Portuguese—which should dare to interfere with
her, or, even without interfering, should cross her path by accident!
Already she had given a good account of more than one “caraque” or
“caravel,” over which the yellow flag of Spain should never float again.
And every one on board, from the captain to the cabin-boy, considered
such “spoiling of the Egyptians” not only perfectly lawful, but a highly
meritorious and satisfactory doing of their duty in that state of life
unto which it had pleased God to call them.
All this and much more Walter learned, before he had been four-and-twenty
hours on board, from his cousin George. The light-hearted, good-natured
sailor-lad did the honours of the ship, his pride and joy, in first-rate
style to his gentlemanly cousin; nor was he by any means insensible to
the profound admiration with which the young scholar regarded him. This
admiration might have become mutual, not without advantage to both,
had not Walter’s evil genius prompted him to show off the fragments of
nautical knowledge he had picked up from his friend the blacksmith. In
his enthusiasm he ventured upon some ill-advised observations about
“cobridge-heads,” “sky-scrapers,” and “mizzen-masts,” which provoked
George to peals of laughter, and unnecessarily loud assertions that
“Master Walter might be a fine scholar on shore, but he did not know a
main-mast from a marlin-spike on board ship.”
Walter ought to have joined in the laugh, or found a good-humoured
retort. But it is hard to be taunted with ignorance of what we love. So
he changed colour, and, with some irritation of manner, vowed that he
would soon know everything on board as well as George himself. And he was
as good as his word.
When the ship arrived in London, the welcome he received from his uncle
and aunt and their family was all that could be desired. Thomas Noble was
a good specimen of a fine class, the merchantmen of England, who were
then beginning to be what they have been ever since, “the honourable men
of the earth.” Like so many of their brethren in the Low Countries and
elsewhere, they had espoused, almost universally, the cause of religious
truth and freedom, and they maintained it often with great courage and
liberality. There was not amongst them all a more zealous “Gospeller”
than Master Noble, Warden of the Mercers’ Company, and some time Sheriff
of London Town. He dwelt on London Bridge,—like the well-known cloth
merchant, Master Hewit, whose young daughter the apprentice, Edward
Osborne, saved by his celebrated leap from the kitchen window into the
river below. All things had gone prosperously with Master Noble. He had
the blessing that makes rich, and no sorrow added with it. His six brave
sons were doing well, each in his own way. Gentle Lilias was a flower
scarcely opened, fair and pure as a spring lily. At the time of Walter’s
visit, it happened that all were at home, or within easy reach of it, and
often gathered around the cheerful, plentiful board where their father
presided.
Walter was very happy amongst them. His days and weeks glided rapidly by
amidst novel sights and exciting occupations. He saw the Queen ride in
state to old St. Paul’s, amidst transports of the loyal ardour that was
such a characteristic feature of the times. He saw St. Paul’s itself, and
Westminster Abbey, and the Tower, and the shops, and the fields where the
young men and apprentices played games, and practised archery; and he
sent out his own cloth-yard arrow very creditably amongst the rest. What
was better than all, he bore part in a healthy, kindly family life, where
peace, order, and plenty reigned.
It was strange enough that his most intimate friend amongst his cousins
should be the one that he had come prepared almost to despise—“’prentice
Will,” in his plain blue gown and close-cropped hair. One evening at
supper George was vaunting the glories of the _Royal Tudor_, when Will
(who was frequently permitted to join the family meal, his master being
an old and valued friend of his father’s) looked up quietly from his
trencher of powdered beef, and remarked, “She’s well enough, brother
George; but call me knave and Papist if the _English Merchantman_ does
not beat her as clean as Harry beat that great lubberly lout of a
draper’s lad last Saturday at the butts in Finsbury fields.”
“Speak of what you understand, my lad of watches and finger-rings,”
George retorted contemptuously. “Would you wish a craft built for running
to and fro in the Mediterranean to look like a cruiser for the Spanish
main?”
“Is the _Royal Merchantman_ to sail the Spanish main?” asked Walter in an
eager, nervous whisper.
“The _English Merchantman_, an it please you, cousin,” Will corrected
aloud; “though, indeed,” he added mysteriously, “if all were known, the
other name might not come so much amiss. My master more than hints there
be high and mighty personages with him in his venture.”
“Will,” said his father, “don’t speak evil of dignities.”
“Where’s the evil, father?” Will asked briskly, yet respectfully. “Every
one knows my master’s good conditions; and that which, in the way of gain
or profit, would not soil _his_ fingers, is clean enough to be touched by
the Queen’s gracious Majesty herself, God bless her.”
“Amen!” said Harry the soldier. “Will, my lad, ne’er fash thyself with
scruples about the _English Merchantman_. Let her cleave the waves as
merrily as she lists. Ay, and let her crew seize Spanish treasure,—what
is that but robbing the robber, and spoiling the spoiler? And if they cut
the throats of the men—say rather of the fiends—that guard it, they will
serve them better than—”
“Harry! Harry!” It was his mother who spoke, and in a tone of grieved
surprise. “Are these fit words for a Christian man to speak?”
“No fit words for you to hear, at all events; so I crave your pardon,
mother,” he answered. “Yet, if you knew what I know of deeds done by the
hands of Spanish men, I think that you—even _you_, could not weigh and
measure out your words when you spoke of them.”
“Will,” whispered Walter, “will you take me to see the _English
Merchantman_?”
“With all my heart,” Will answered.
He was quite ready to fulfil his promise. The next Saturday afternoon,
the holiday of London ’prentices, was the time fixed upon. Will asked
his cousin’s leave to bring with them his fellow-apprentice, and Walter
somewhat reluctantly consented. He found Eustace Jenkyns, however, a
notable addition to their party. He was a bold, merry scapegrace, who, to
Walter’s surprise, seemed quite an authority upon nautical matters; but,
as Will privately informed him, was “nowhere” in the business, and just
now in disgrace with his master for sundry acts of gross inattention and
carelessness. Naturally idle and restless, he had fallen in with some
of the wild speculations current at the time, and these had filled his
head with visions of money-getting, far more rapid than any the workshop
or the counter could realize. He talked of the gold to be won in the
far West by brave hearts and ready hands, even alluding to the legend,
already well known to Walter, of the lake of Parima and the golden city
of Manoa or El Dorado. Walter believed, for his part, that the Incas
who had been dispossessed by the Spaniards were still reigning there in
barbaric splendour; and many and many a time, as he sat in the window
of the old hall in his childhood’s home with some early narrative of
travel borrowed from the vicar before him, had he dreamed of finding
and restoring them. Eustace Jenkyns did not care in the least for the
lost Incas, but he cared for gold and for glory. Of these he talked,
while Walter listened—and the poison shot through his veins like fire.
Gold would be welcome, of course, to one who knew so well the pains
and privations of poverty. But glory!—that was the bait that drew him
irresistibly on.
He was not greatly shocked when at last Eustace trusted him with his
grand secret. “I was not made for crying, ‘What do you lack, my masters?’
or for twisting steel wires and copper filings either,” he said. “My
Christmas box is broken and spent long ago, my credit gone, my master
turned against me. ’Twere no great matter to break my indentures
too, and slip off in the dark next Friday se’nnight to the _English
Merchantman_. So Master Nevit would lose a bad ’prentice, and the service
would gain a good sailor. And what would you think, Master Walter, of
flinging off that pretty scholar’s gown, crying, ‘Ho, for the high seas!’
and joining me!”
“Fie on you, Jenkyns!” cried Walter, turning away half angry, half
amused. And yet the shaft hit.
A chain of circumstances, slight, yet strong, had woven itself around
him, and by this he was being gradually drawn onwards to a deed from
which, if boldly proposed to him at first, he would have turned away in
horror. And yet, if his heart had not yielded already to temptation,
these circumstances would have been as powerless to draw him as threads
of gossamer.
It was quite natural that pretty Cousin Lilias should receive a large
share of Master Walter’s attention and admiration. As the time was
drawing near when he ought to quit his uncle’s hospitable roof for
Oxford, it occurred to him to beg one of the young lady’s top-knots for
a keepsake. This was fair enough, since he had spent much more than he
should have done upon ribbons and trinkets for her. Happening to find her
one evening alone—she was standing in a kind of lobby that had a window,
with a balcony outside, overlooking the river—he modestly preferred his
important request. At first he played the grown-up cavalier, made her the
fairest compliments he could think of, and even indulged in some of the
“euphemisms” which were then beginning to become fashionable.
But gradually his boyish nature reasserted itself, and forgetting his
assumed manliness, he sprang forward and deftly tried to snatch the
precious knot of blue ribbon; which, however, Lilias, for fear of
surprise, had already taken from its place, and was holding high above
her head. And thus for a minute’s space or so they fenced and parried,
laughing lightly at their sport, like the children they really were.
So absorbed were they in their play that George drew near unnoticed.
The young sailor was very proud of his sister, and had never been quite
cordial with Walter Grey since he observed his attentions to her. He
showed, therefore, more indignation than the occasion seemed to demand.
“Sister Lilias, you are too old to play with unmannerly boys,” he
remarked in an elder-brotherly tone of reproof. “Our mother is asking for
you in the parlour.”
Lilias took the hint and vanished; although she did not present herself
in the well-lighted parlour until she had cooled her burning cheeks with
fresh water. George meanwhile gave Walter the full benefit of his angry
scorn.
“You poor little scholar boy!” he cried. “Prithee, keep to your Latin
grammar, and leave ladies’ top-knots for those who can win them in
something better than child’s play. If you had not been all your life
tied to your mother’s apron, you would know by this time that my sister
Lilias—”
“At least I know what you, sir, seem to have forgotten—that your sister
is a lady,” interrupted the indignant Walter. “How dare you chide her as
an ill-conditioned child? And as for myself, though I have the misfortune
to be a scholar, I hope at least to show you that I am a man. Will you
fight me, sirrah?”
“I’ll put thee in my pocket, and carry thee over the Bridge and along
Cheapside, with all the ’prentice lads and serving-lasses to look on and
cry Lack-a-day!” returned George, laughing heartily. “Nay, nay,” he added
presently, glancing at Walter’s flushed face and lowering brow, “’tis but
sailor’s nonsense, Cousin Walter. I mean no harm. There, give me your
hand. One must be careful of a girl like Lilias, though.”
But Walter turned haughtily from him, and leaning against the casement,
looked out upon the waters of the Thames, gliding peacefully far below.
“The lad is dumpish,” thought George. “Well, I can’t help that.
To-morrow I will buy for him that book I saw him eye so lovingly in old
Spicer’s booth the other day, to show I bear no malice.” Comforting
himself with this resolve, he walked away, carelessly whistling some
sailor’s melody.
Walter stood and gazed—in a listless, unhappy mood, discontented with his
lot in life, angry with every one, but most of all with himself. If he
could but go away, win gold and glory, and then come back and show his
cousins the worth of the “little scholar boy” they despised! What was
it that just then shot noiselessly from under the arch of the bridge?
A wherry, barely visible through the darkening gloom. But he marked it
as it glided past; and he knew its errand well. Had not Eustace Jenkyns
told him all? What mattered the details of the plot—how serving men and
lasses were bribed, and the suspicions of the city watch laid to rest by
a plausible story, accounting for the appearance of the wherry at that
unseasonable hour? All he cared to think of was the rapturous joy with
which the freed apprentice would set his foot that night on the deck of
the _English Merchantman_. And then,—away to the distant West, to the
land of gold and glory, of romance and dreams!
Why should Eustace Jenkyns, the goldsmith’s runaway apprentice, taste
that joy, and Walter Grey, scholar and gentleman, be shut out from it
all? Was not his own life in his hand to do what he pleased with? For one
delicious maddening moment he seemed to feel the spicy gales from those
distant shores already fanning his cheek. And then his eye rested on the
boat, gliding slowly past once more, _two_ men in it now.
Another moment and the opportunity would be gone—gone for ever. There was
no time for thought. From the ship he would write to his mother, explain
all, and excuse himself—if he could. Now he must act; now or never. He
took out a white kerchief, and waved it. The signal was noticed by the
men in the wherry—one of them raised his oar to a perpendicular position
by way of answer.
Now, what should he do? At this hour the doors would be shut and all the
lower windows of the house securely fastened, nor could he open them
without attracting attention. But he remembered that George had once
descended from the balcony to the river,—a perilous, but practicable
feat, which he had heard him describe, with all its circumstances, for
the benefit of James and Ned. Walter, naturally brave, was capable in
this hour of excitement of the wildest daring. His head was steady, and
his limbs were light and agile. In a moment he was out on the balcony,
over it, clinging to it with both hands while he sought foothold beneath.
He had not, fortunately, to intrust himself to a trim, modern building,
smooth as glass from attic to basement. The kitchen window, an old statue
of a saint in a niche, uneven stones here and there, tufts of grass,
weeds, lastly the bridge buttress, gave him the support he needed, and
enabled him at length to drop exhausted, but unhurt, into the dark cold
waters beneath. He was soon helped into the boat by the astonished, but
admiring Eustace Jenkyns.
And thus Walter Grey, by one egregious act of folly, or rather of
madness, falsified the promise of his thoughtful childhood and precocious
boyhood, gave the lie to all his past life, and utterly changed all his
future.
XXIII.
Where it Led.
“Oh! what a tale to shadow with its gloom
That happy home in England. Idle fear!
Would the winds tell it?”
HEMANS.
Three years have passed away since Walter Grey so suddenly and strangely
forsook his home and his friends. During that time he has had his heart’s
desire—in part, at least. He has seen how the sunlight glistens on the
waters of the Spanish main, his foot has pressed the flowery shores
of unknown islands, and his hand has borne part, not unworthily, in
England’s great naval contest with the enemies of her creed and her race.
But for all this he has paid a heavy price. He has taken his own way, and
whither has it led him? Haply to an early grave, amongst the shells and
sea-weed, fathoms deep below the blue waters he so longed to look upon?
Had such been his fate, many might have mourned, but some would have
envied him; and certainly, no forebodings of an early, honourable death
would have done aught to deter him from the path he had chosen. But the
English mariner who in those days dared to invade the Spanish main, the
Pope’s gift to his favourite son, had to brave dangers far more terrible.
The Holy Inquisition stretched its ghastly arm over half the globe,
and with a touch, “cold, strong, passionless, like a dead man’s clasp,”
claimed and held every English prisoner that fell into Spanish hands.
Rashly—perhaps too rashly—the _English Merchantman_ measured her strength
against a great Spanish galleon and two smaller vessels, with which she
fell in off Juan Fernandez. Gallant was the fight maintained by the
English ship, but it was too unequal even for that day of marvellous
naval achievements. After five hours’ hard fighting she was glad to get
away, crippled and sorely raked, yet unconquered. But Walter Grey was
reported missing. No man saw his face again, after that first mad rush
upon the enemies’ deck in which he had borne his part so bravely.
And could his comrades have seen his face six months afterwards they
would not have recognized him. Well would it have been for him had he
died of the wound that separated him from his countrymen, and left him a
helpless captive in the hands of the Spaniards, and at the mercy of the
Holy Inquisition. By that hideous magician the bright-eyed, fair-haired
English youth was soon transformed into a gaunt skeleton, old in misery,
if still young in years. In pursuance of his sentence at an auto-da-fé in
Lima, he took his place on the narrow wooden bench of a Spanish galley,
and chained to three other wretches, toiled with them at the task of
moving one of its forty great oars.
Here—it is a fellow-sufferer who speaks—his food was a scanty allowance
of “coarse black biscuit and water, his lodging was the bare boards and
planks of the galley, and hunger, thirst, cold, and stripes he lacked
none.”[44]
But, it will be asked, had Walter Grey no alternative? Did men come forth
from the gates of that gloomy “Santa Casa,” only to take their places in
Spanish galleys? Not always. Some there were who wrestled boldly with the
Inquisition fiend and overcame him, finding man’s worst God’s best, and
death the gate of glory. But each of these crowned conquerors possessed
a talisman, whose marvellous virtue bore them through the fiercest
conflict,—even that white stone “wherein is written a new name, which no
man knoweth save he that receiveth it.”
Walter Grey had not this talisman. Yet for the honour of his country, for
the remembrance of the lessons learned beside his mother’s knee, he had
borne much, and with heroic spirit. He knew that the creed he had been
taught in childhood was true. But then he did not know that its promises
were true _for him_. Perhaps they were, perhaps they were not; and like
far wiser men, Walter Grey found it “hard to die for a perhaps.” So at
last his heart failed him. He became a Penitent; and he experienced the
tender mercies of the Inquisition towards returning penitents. He was
sent to the galleys—for twenty years, or for life. He scarcely knew how
the sentence ran; and in fact it did not matter.