HOW THE NOBLE BROTHERHOOD OF THE ROSE WAS FOUNDED
“It is virtue, yea virtue, gentlemen, that maketh gentlemen; that
maketh the poor rich, the base-born noble, the subject a sovereign,
the deformed beautiful, the sick whole, the weak strong, the most
miserable most happy. There are two principal and peculiar gifts
in the nature of man, knowledge and reason; the one commandeth, and
the other obeyeth: these things neither the whirling wheel of
fortune can change, neither the deceitful cavillings of worldlings
separate, neither sickness abate, neither age abolish.”--LILLY's
Euphues, 1586.
It now falls to my lot to write of the foundation of that most
chivalrous brotherhood of the Rose, which after a few years made itself
not only famous in its native country of Devon, but formidable, as will
be related hereafter, both in Ireland and in the Netherlands, in the
Spanish Main and the heart of South America. And if this chapter shall
seem to any Quixotic and fantastical, let them recollect that the
generation who spoke and acted thus in matters of love and honor were,
nevertheless, practised and valiant soldiers, and prudent and crafty
politicians; that he who wrote the “Arcadia” was at the same time, in
spite of his youth, one of the subtlest diplomatists of Europe; that
the poet of the “Faerie Queene” was also the author of “The State
of Ireland;” and if they shall quote against me with a sneer Lilly's
“Euphues” itself, I shall only answer by asking--Have they ever read
it? For if they have done so, I pity them if they have not found it, in
spite of occasional tediousness and pedantry, as brave, righteous, and
pious a book as man need look into: and wish for no better proof of
the nobleness and virtue of the Elizabethan age, than the fact that
“Euphues” and the “Arcadia” were the two popular romances of the day. It
may have suited the purposes of Sir Walter Scott, in his cleverly drawn
Sir Piercie Shafton, to ridicule the Euphuists, and that affectatam
comitatem of the travelled English of which Languet complains; but over
and above the anachronism of the whole character (for, to give but one
instance, the Euphuist knight talks of Sidney's quarrel with Lord Oxford
at least ten years before it happened), we do deny that Lilly's book
could, if read by any man of common sense, produce such a coxcomb,
whose spiritual ancestors would rather have been Gabriel Harvey and
Lord Oxford,--if indeed the former has not maligned the latter, and
ill-tempered Tom Nash maligned the maligner in his turn.
But, indeed, there is a double anachronism in Sir Piercie; for he does
not even belong to the days of Sidney, but to those worse times which
began in the latter years of Elizabeth, and after breaking her mighty
heart, had full license to bear their crop of fools' heads in the
profligate days of James. Of them, perhaps, hereafter. And in the
meanwhile, let those who have not read “Euphues” believe that, if they
could train a son after the fashion of his Ephoebus, to the great
saving of their own money and his virtue, all fathers, even in these
money-making days, would rise up and call them blessed. Let us
rather open our eyes, and see in these old Elizabeth gallants our own
ancestors, showing forth with the luxuriant wildness of youth all the
virtues which still go to the making of a true Englishman. Let us not
only see in their commercial and military daring, in their political
astuteness, in their deep reverence for law, and in their solemn sense
of the great calling of the English nation, the antitypes or rather
the examples of our own: but let us confess that their chivalry is only
another garb of that beautiful tenderness and mercy which is now, as
it was then, the twin sister of English valor; and even in their
extravagant fondness for Continental manners and literature, let us
recognize that old Anglo-Norman teachableness and wide-heartedness,
which has enabled us to profit by the wisdom and civilization of all
ages and of all lands, without prejudice to our own distinctive national
character.
And so I go to my story, which, if any one dislikes, he has but to turn
the leaf till he finds pasturage which suits him better.
Amyas could not sail the next day, or the day after; for the southwester
freshened, and blew three parts of a gale dead into the bay. So having
got the “Mary Grenville” down the river into Appledore pool, ready to
start with the first shift of wind, he went quietly home; and when
his mother started on a pillion behind the old serving-man to ride
to Clovelly, where Frank lay wounded, he went in with her as far as
Bideford, and there met, coming down the High Street, a procession of
horsemen headed by Will Cary, who, clad cap-a-pie in a shining armor,
sword on thigh, and helmet at saddle-bow, looked as gallant a young
gentleman as ever Bideford dames peeped at from door and window. Behind
him, upon country ponies, came four or five stout serving-men, carrying
his lances and baggage, and their own long-bows, swords, and bucklers;
and behind all, in a horse-litter, to Mrs. Leigh's great joy, Master
Frank himself. He deposed that his wounds were only flesh-wounds, the
dagger having turned against his ribs; that he must see the last of
his brother; and that with her good leave he would not come home to
Burrough, but take up his abode with Cary in the Ship Tavern, close to
the Bridge-foot. This he did forthwith, and settling himself on a couch,
held his levee there in state, mobbed by all the gossips of the town,
not without white fibs as to who had brought him into that sorry plight.
But in the meanwhile he and Amyas concocted a scheme, which was put
into effect the next day (being market-day); first by the innkeeper, who
began under Amyas's orders a bustle of roasting, boiling, and frying,
unparalleled in the annals of the Ship Tavern; and next by Amyas
himself, who, going out into the market, invited as many of his old
schoolfellows, one by one apart, as Frank had pointed out to him, to a
merry supper and a “rowse” thereon consequent; by which crafty scheme,
in came each of Rose Salterne's gentle admirers, and found himself, to
his considerable disgust, seated at the same table with six rivals, to
none of whom had he spoken for the last six months. However, all were
too well bred to let the Leighs discern as much; and they (though, of
course, they knew all) settled their guests, Frank on his couch lying
at the head of the table, and Amyas taking the bottom: and contrived, by
filling all mouths with good things, to save them the pain of speaking
to each other till the wine should have loosened their tongues and
warmed their hearts. In the meanwhile both Amyas and Frank, ignoring the
silence of their guests with the most provoking good-humor, chatted,
and joked, and told stories, and made themselves such good company, that
Will Cary, who always found merriment infectious, melted into a jest,
and then into another, and finding good-humor far more pleasant than
bad, tried to make Mr. Coffin laugh, and only made him bow, and to
make Mr. Fortescue laugh, and only made him frown; and unabashed
nevertheless, began playing his light artillery upon the waiters, till
he drove them out of the room bursting with laughter.
So far so good. And when the cloth was drawn, and sack and sugar became
the order of the day, and “Queen and Bible” had been duly drunk with all
the honors, Frank tried a fresh move, and--
“I have a toast, gentlemen--here it is. 'The gentlemen of the Irish
wars; and may Ireland never be without a St. Leger to stand by a
Fortescue, a Fortescue to stand by a St. Leger, and a Chichester to
stand by both.'”
Which toast of course involved the drinking the healths of the three
representatives of those families, and their returning thanks, and
paying a compliment each to the other's house: and so the ice cracked a
little further; and young Fortescue proposed the health of “Amyas Leigh
and all bold mariners;” to which Amyas replied by a few blunt kindly
words, “that he wished to know no better fortune than to sail round the
world again with the present company as fellow-adventurers, and so give
the Spaniards another taste of the men of Devon.”
And by this time, the wine going down sweetly, caused the lips of them
that were asleep to speak; till the ice broke up altogether, and every
man began talking like a rational Englishman to the man who sat next
him.
“And now, gentlemen,” said Frank, who saw that it was the fit moment
for the grand assault which he had planned all along; “let me give you
a health which none of you, I dare say, will refuse to drink with heart
and soul as well as with lips;--the health of one whom beauty and virtue
have so ennobled, that in their light the shadow of lowly birth
is unseen;--the health of one whom I would proclaim as peerless in
loveliness, were it not that every gentleman here has sisters, who might
well challenge from her the girdle of Venus: and yet what else dare
I say, while those same lovely ladies who, if they but use their own
mirrors, must needs be far better judges of beauty than I can be, have
in my own hearing again and again assigned the palm to her? Surely, if
the goddesses decide among themselves the question of the golden apple,
Paris himself must vacate the judgment-seat. Gentlemen, your hearts, I
doubt not, have already bid you, as my unworthy lips do now, to drink
'The Rose of Torridge.'”
If the Rose of Torridge herself had walked into the room, she could
hardly have caused more blank astonishment than Frank's bold speech.
Every guest turned red, and pale, and red again, and looked at the other
as much as to say, “What right has any one but I to drink her? Lift
your glass, and I will dash it out of your hand;” but Frank, with sweet
effrontery, drank “The health of the Rose of Torridge, and a double
health to that worthy gentleman, whosoever he may be, whom she is fated
to honor with her love!”
“Well done, cunning Frank Leigh!” cried blunt Will Cary; “none of us
dare quarrel with you now, however much we may sulk at each other. For
there's none of us, I'll warrant, but thinks that she likes him the best
of all; and so we are bound to believe that you have drunk our healths
all round.”
“And so I have: and what better thing can you do, gentlemen, than to
drink each other's healths all round likewise: and so show yourselves
true gentlemen, true Christians, ay, and true lovers? For what is love
(let me speak freely to you, gentlemen and guests), what is love, but
the very inspiration of that Deity whose name is Love? Be sure that not
without reason did the ancients feign Eros to be the eldest of the gods,
by whom the jarring elements of chaos were attuned into harmony and
order. How, then, shall lovers make him the father of strife? Shall
Psyche wed with Cupid, to bring forth a cockatrice's egg? or the soul be
filled with love, the likeness of the immortals, to burn with envy and
jealousy, division and distrust? True, the rose has its thorn: but it
leaves poison and stings to the nettle. Cupid has his arrow: but he
hurls no scorpions. Venus is awful when despised, as the daughters of
Proetus found: but her handmaids are the Graces, not the Furies. Surely
he who loves aright will not only find love lovely, but become himself
lovely also. I speak not to reprehend you, gentlemen; for to you (as
your piercing wits have already perceived, to judge by your honorable
blushes) my discourse tends; but to point you, if you will but permit
me, to that rock which I myself have, I know not by what Divine good
hap, attained; if, indeed, I have attained it, and am not about to be
washed off again by the next tide.”
Frank's rapid and fantastic oratory, utterly unexpected as it was, had
as yet left their wits no time to set their tempers on fire; but when,
weak from his wounds, he paused for breath, there was a haughty
murmur from more than one young gentleman, who took his speech as
an impertinent interference with each man's right to make a fool of
himself; and Mr. Coffin, who had sat quietly bolt upright, and looking
at the opposite wall, now rose as quietly, and with a face which tried
to look utterly unconcerned, was walking out of the room: another
minute, and Lady Bath's prophecy about the feast of the Lapithae might
have come true.
But Frank's heart and head never failed him.
“Mr. Coffin!” said he, in a tone which compelled that gentleman to turn
round, and so brought him under the power of a face which none could
have beheld for five minutes and borne malice, so imploring, tender,
earnest was it. “My dear Mr. Coffin! If my earnestness has made me
forget even for a moment the bounds of courtesy, let me entreat you to
forgive me. Do not add to my heavy griefs, heavy enough already, the
grief of losing a friend. Only hear me patiently to the end (generously,
I know, you will hear me); and then, if you are still incensed, I can
but again entreat your forgiveness a second time.”
Mr. Coffin, to tell the truth, had at that time never been to Court; and
he was therefore somewhat jealous of Frank, and his Court talk, and his
Court clothes, and his Court company; and moreover, being the eldest
of the guests, and only two years younger than Frank himself, he was a
little nettled at being classed in the same category with some who were
scarce eighteen. And if Frank had given the least hint which seemed
to assume his own superiority, all had been lost: but when, instead
thereof, he sued in forma pauperis, and threw himself upon Coffin's
mercy, the latter, who was a true-hearted man enough, and after all had
known Frank ever since either of them could walk, had nothing to do but
to sit down again and submit, while Frank went on more earnestly than
ever.
“Believe me; believe me, Mr. Coffin, and gentlemen all, I no more
arrogate to myself a superiority over you than does the sailor hurled
on shore by the surge fancy himself better than his comrade who is still
battling with the foam. For I too, gentlemen,--let me confess it, that
by confiding in you I may, perhaps, win you to confide in me,--have
loved, ay and do love, where you love also. Do not start. Is it a matter
of wonder that the sun which has dazzled you has dazzled me; that
the lodestone which has drawn you has drawn me? Do not frown, either,
gentlemen. I have learnt to love you for loving what I love, and to
admire you for admiring that which I admire. Will you not try the same
lesson: so easy, and, when learnt, so blissful? What breeds more close
communion between subjects than allegiance to the same queen? between
brothers, than duty to the same father? between the devout, than
adoration for the same Deity? And shall not worship for the same beauty
be likewise a bond of love between the worshippers? and each lover see
in his rival not an enemy, but a fellow-sufferer? You smile and say in
your hearts, that though all may worship, but one can enjoy; and that
one man's meat must be the poison of the rest. Be it so, though I deny
it. Shall we anticipate our own doom, and slay ourselves for fear of
dying? Shall we make ourselves unworthy of her from our very eagerness
to win her, and show ourselves her faithful knights, by cherishing
envy,--most unknightly of all sins? Shall we dream with the Italian
or the Spaniard that we can become more amiable in a lady's eyes, by
becoming hateful in the eyes of God and of each other? Will she love
us the better, if we come to her with hands stained in the blood of
him whom she loves better than us? Let us recollect ourselves rather,
gentlemen; and be sure that our only chance of winning her, if she be
worth winning, is to will what she wills, honor whom she honors, love
whom she loves. If there is to be rivalry among us, let it be a rivalry
in nobleness, an emulation in virtue. Let each try to outstrip the other
in loyalty to his queen, in valor against her foes, in deeds of courtesy
and mercy to the afflicted and oppressed; and thus our love will indeed
prove its own divine origin, by raising us nearer to those gods whose
gift it is. But yet I show you a more excellent way, and that is
charity. Why should we not make this common love to her, whom I am
unworthy to name, the sacrament of a common love to each other? Why
should we not follow the heroical examples of those ancient knights, who
having but one grief, one desire, one goddess, held that one heart was
enough to contain that grief, to nourish that desire, to worship that
divinity; and so uniting themselves in friendship till they became but
one soul in two bodies, lived only for each other in living only for
her, vowing as faithful worshippers to abide by her decision, to find
their own bliss in hers, and whomsoever she esteemed most worthy of
her love, to esteem most worthy also, and count themselves, by that her
choice, the bounden servants of him whom their mistress had condescended
to advance to the dignity of her master?--as I (not without hope that I
shall be outdone in generous strife) do here promise to be the faithful
friend, and, to my ability, the hearty servant, of him who shall be
honored with the love of the Rose of Torridge.”
He ceased, and there was a pause.
At last young Fortescue spoke.
“I may be paying you a left-handed compliment, sir: but it seems to me
that you are so likely, in that case, to become your own faithful friend
and hearty servant (even if you have not borne off the bell already
while we have been asleep), that the bargain is hardly fair between such
a gay Italianist and us country swains.”
“You undervalue yourself and your country, my dear sir. But set your
mind at rest. I know no more of that lady's mind than you do: nor shall
I know. For the sake of my own peace, I have made a vow neither to see
her, nor to hear, if possible, tidings of her, till three full years are
past. Dixi?”
Mr. Coffin rose.
“Gentlemen, I may submit to be outdone by Mr. Leigh in eloquence, but
not in generosity; if he leaves these parts for three years, I do so
also.”
“And go in charity with all mankind,” said Cary. “Give us your hand,
old fellow. If you are a Coffin, you were sawn out of no wishy-washy
elm-board, but right heart-of-oak. I am going, too, as Amyas here can
tell, to Ireland away, to cool my hot liver in a bog, like a Jack-hare
in March. Come, give us thy neif, and let us part in peace. I was minded
to have fought thee this day--”
“I should have been most happy, sir,” said Coffin.
--“But now I am all love and charity to mankind. Can I have the pleasure
of begging pardon of the world in general, and thee in particular? Does
any one wish to pull my nose; send me an errand; make me lend him five
pounds; ay, make me buy a horse of him, which will be as good as giving
him ten? Come along! Join hands all round, and swear eternal friendship,
as brothers of the sacred order of the--of what. Frank Leigh? Open thy
mouth, Daniel, and christen us!”
“The Rose!” said Frank quietly, seeing that his new love-philtre was
working well, and determined to strike while the iron was hot, and carry
the matter too far to carry it back again.
“The Rose!” cried Cary, catching hold of Coffin's hand with his right,
and Fortescue's with his left. “Come, Mr. Coffin! Bend, sturdy oak! 'Woe
to the stiffnecked and stout-hearted!' says Scripture.”
And somehow or other, whether it was Frank's chivalrous speech, or
Cary's fun, or Amyas's good wine, or the nobleness which lies in every
young lad's heart, if their elders will take the trouble to call it out,
the whole party came in to terms one by one, shook hands all round, and
vowed on the hilt of Amyas's sword to make fools of themselves no more,
at least by jealousy: but to stand by each other and by their lady-love,
and neither grudge nor grumble, let her dance with, flirt with, or marry
with whom she would; and in order that the honor of their peerless dame,
and the brotherhood which was named after her, might be spread through
all lands, and equal that of Angelica or Isonde of Brittany, they would
each go home, and ask their fathers' leave (easy enough to obtain in
those brave times) to go abroad wheresoever there were “good wars,” to
emulate there the courage and the courtesy of Walter Manny and Gonzalo
Fernandes, Bayard and Gaston de Foix. Why not? Sidney was the hero of
Europe at five-and-twenty; and why not they?
And Frank watched and listened with one of his quiet smiles (his eyes,
as some folks' do, smiled even when his lips were still), and only said:
“Gentlemen, be sure that you will never repent this day.”
“Repent?” said Cary. “I feel already as angelical as thou lookest, Saint
Silvertongue. What was it that sneezed?--the cat?”
“The lion, rather, by the roar of it,” said Amyas, making a dash at the
arras behind him. “Why, here is a doorway here! and--”
And rushing under the arras, through an open door behind, he returned,
dragging out by the head Mr. John Brimblecombe.
Who was Mr. John Brimblecombe?
If you have forgotten him, you have done pretty nearly what every one
else in the room had done. But you recollect a certain fat lad, son of
the schoolmaster, whom Sir Richard punished for tale-bearing three years
before, by sending him, not to Coventry, but to Oxford. That was the
man. He was now one-and-twenty, and a bachelor of Oxford, where he
had learnt such things as were taught in those days, with more or less
success; and he was now hanging about Bideford once more, intending to
return after Christmas and read divinity, that he might become a parson,
and a shepherd of souls in his native land.
Jack was in person exceedingly like a pig: but not like every pig: not
in the least like the Devon pigs of those days, which, I am sorry to
say, were no more shapely than the true Irish greyhound who pays
Pat's “rint” for him; or than the lanky monsters who wallow in German
rivulets, while the village swineherd, beneath a shady lime, forgets his
fleas in the melody of a Jew's harp--strange mud-colored creatures, four
feet high and four inches thick, which look as if they had passed their
lives, as a collar of Oxford brawn is said to do, between two tight
boards. Such were then the pigs of Devon: not to be compared with the
true wild descendant of Noah's stock, high-withered, furry, grizzled,
game-flavored little rooklers, whereof many a sownder still grunted
about Swinley down and Braunton woods, Clovelly glens and Bursdon moor.
Not like these, nor like the tame abomination of those barbarous times,
was Jack: but prophetic in face, figure, and complexion, of Fisher Hobbs
and the triumphs of science. A Fisher Hobbs' pig of twelve stone, on
his hind-legs--that was what he was, and nothing else; and if you do not
know, reader, what a Fisher Hobbs is, you know nothing about pigs,
and deserve no bacon for breakfast. But such was Jack. The same plump
mulberry complexion, garnished with a few scattered black bristles; the
same sleek skin, looking always as if it was upon the point of bursting;
the same little toddling legs; the same dapper bend in the small of the
back; the same cracked squeak; the same low upright forehead, and tiny
eyes; the same round self-satisfied jowl; the same charming sensitive
little cocked nose, always on the look-out for a savory smell,--and
yet while watching for the best, contented with the worst; a pig of
self-helpful and serene spirit, as Jack was, and therefore, like him,
fatting fast while other pigs' ribs are staring through their skins.
Such was Jack; and lucky it was for him that such he was; for it was
little that he got to fat him at Oxford, in days when a servitor meant
really a servant-student; and wistfully that day did his eyes, led by
his nose, survey at the end of the Ship Inn passage the preparations
for Amyas's supper. The innkeeper was a friend of his; for, in the first
place, they had lived within three doors of each other all their lives;
and next, Jack was quite pleasant company enough, beside being a
learned man and an Oxford scholar, to be asked in now and then to the
innkeeper's private parlor, when there were no gentlemen there, to
crack his little joke and tell his little story, sip the leavings of the
guests' sack, and sometimes help the host to eat the leavings of their
supper. And it was, perhaps, with some such hope that Jack trotted off
round the corner to the Ship that very afternoon; for that faithful
little nose of his, as it sniffed out of a back window of the school,
had given him warning of Sabean gales, and scents of Paradise, from the
inn kitchen below; so he went round, and asked for his pot of small ale
(his only luxury), and stood at the bar to drink it; and looked inward
with his little twinkling right eye, and sniffed inward with his little
curling right nostril, and beheld, in the kitchen beyond, salad in
stacks and fagots: salad of lettuce, salad of cress and endive, salad of
boiled coleworts, salad of pickled coleworts, salad of angelica, salad
of scurvy-wort, and seven salads more; for potatoes were not as yet, and
salads were during eight months of the year the only vegetable. And on
the dresser, and before the fire, whole hecatombs of fragrant victims,
which needed neither frankincense nor myrrh; Clovelly herrings and
Torridge salmon, Exmoor mutton and Stow venison, stubble geese and
woodcocks, curlew and snipe, hams of Hampshire, chitterlings of Taunton,
and botargos of Cadiz, such as Pantagruel himself might have devoured.
And Jack eyed them, as a ragged boy eyes the cakes in a pastrycook's
window; and thought of the scraps from the commoners' dinner, which were
his wages for cleaning out the hall; and meditated deeply on the unequal
distribution of human bliss.
“Ah, Mr. Brimblecombe!” said the host, bustling out with knife and apron
to cool himself in the passage. “Here are doings! Nine gentlemen to
supper!”
“Nine! Are they going to eat all that?”
“Well, I can't say--that Mr. Amyas is as good as three to his trencher:
but still there's crumbs, Mr. Brimblecombe, crumbs; and waste not
want not is my doctrine; so you and I may have a somewhat to stay our
stomachs, about an eight o'clock.”
“Eight?” said Jack, looking wistfully at the clock. “It's but four now.
Well, it's kind of you, and perhaps I'll look in.”
“Just you step in now, and look to this venison. There's a breast! you
may lay your two fingers into the say there, and not get to the bottom
of the fat. That's Sir Richard's sending. He's all for them Leighs, and
no wonder, they'm brave lads, surely; and there's a saddle-o'-mutton! I
rode twenty miles for mun yesterday, I did, over beyond Barnstaple; and
five year old, Mr. John, it is, if ever five years was; and not a tooth
to mun's head, for I looked to that; and smelt all the way home like any
apple; and if it don't ate so soft as ever was scald cream, never you
call me Thomas Burman.”
“Humph!” said Jack. “And that's their dinner. Well, some are born with a
silver spoon in their mouth.”
“Some be born with roast beef in their mouths, and plum-pudding in
their pocket to take away the taste o' mun; and that's better than empty
spunes, eh?”
“For them that get it,” said Jack. “But for them that don't--” And with
a sigh he returned to his small ale, and then lingered in and out of the
inn, watching the dinner as it went into the best room, where the guests
were assembled.
And as he lounged there, Amyas went in, and saw him, and held out his
hand, and said--
“Hillo, Jack! how goes the world? How you've grown!” and passed
on;--what had Jack Brimblecombe to do with Rose Salterne?
So Jack lingered on, hovering around the fragrant smell like a fly round
a honey-pot, till he found himself invisibly attracted, and as it were
led by the nose out of the passage into the adjoining room, and to that
side of the room where there was a door; and once there he could not
help hearing what passed inside; till Rose Salterne's name fell on his
ear. So, as it was ordained, he was taken in the fact. And now behold
him brought in red-hand to judgment, not without a kick or two from
the wrathful foot of Amyas Leigh. Whereat there fell on him a storm of
abuse, which, for the honor of that gallant company, I shall not give in
detail; but which abuse, strange to say, seemed to have no effect on the
impenitent and unabashed Jack, who, as soon as he could get his breath,
made answer fiercely, amid much puffing and blowing.
“What business have I here? As much as any of you. If you had asked me
in, I would have come: but as you didn't, I came without asking.”
“You shameless rascal!” said Cary. “Come if you were asked, where there
was good wine? I'll warrant you for that!”
“Why,” said Amyas, “no lad ever had a cake at school but he would
dog him up one street and down another all day for the crumbs, the
trencher-scraping spaniel!”
“Patience, masters!” said Frank. “That Jack's is somewhat of a gnathonic
and parasitic soul, or stomach, all Bideford apple-women know; but I
suspect more than Deus Venter has brought him hither.”
“Deus eavesdropping, then. We shall have the whole story over the town
by to-morrow,” said another; beginning at that thought to feel somewhat
ashamed of his late enthusiasm.
“Ah, Mr. Frank! You were always the only one that would stand up for me!
Deus Venter, quotha? 'Twas Deus Cupid, it was!”
A roar of laughter followed this announcement.
“What?” asked Frank; “was it Cupid, then, who sneezed approval to our
love, Jack, as he did to that of Dido and Aeneas?”
But Jack went on desperately.
“I was in the next room, drinking of my beer. I couldn't help that,
could I? And then I heard her name; and I couldn't help listening then.
Flesh and blood couldn't.”
“Nor fat either!”
“No, nor fat, Mr. Cary. Do you suppose fat men haven't souls to be saved
as well as thin ones, and hearts to burst, too, as well as stomachs?
Fat! Fat can feel, I reckon, as well as lean. Do you suppose there's
naught inside here but beer?”
And he laid his hand, as Drayton might have said, on that stout bastion,
hornwork, ravelin, or demilune, which formed the outworks to the citadel
of his purple isle of man.
“Naught but beer?--Cheese, I suppose?”
“Bread?”
“Beef?”
“Love!” cried Jack. “Yes, Love!--Ay, you laugh; but my eyes are not so
grown up with fat but what I can see what's fair as well as you.”
“Oh, Jack, naughty Jack, dost thou heap sin on sin, and luxury on
gluttony?”
“Sin? If I sin, you sin: I tell you, and I don't care who knows it, I've
loved her these three years as well as e'er a one of you, I have. I've
thought o' nothing else, prayed for nothing else, God forgive me! And
then you laugh at me, because I'm a poor parson's son, and you fine
gentlemen: God made us both, I reckon. You?--you make a deal of giving
her up to-day. Why, it's what I've done for three miserable years as
ever poor sinner spent; ay, from the first day I said to myself, 'Jack,
if you can't have that pearl, you'll have none; and that you can't
have, for it's meat for your masters: so conquer or die.' And I couldn't
conquer. I can't help loving her, worshipping her, no more than you; and
I will die: but you needn't laugh meanwhile at me that have done as much
as you, and will do again.”
“It is the old tale,” said Frank to himself; “whom will not love
transform into a hero?”
And so it was. Jack's squeaking voice was firm and manly, his pig's
eyes flashed very fire, his gestures were so free and earnest, that the
ungainliness of his figure was forgotten; and when he finished with
a violent burst of tears, Frank, forgetting his wounds, sprang up and
caught him by the hand.
“John Brimblecombe, forgive me! Gentlemen, if we are gentlemen, we
ought to ask his pardon. Has he not shown already more chivalry, more
self-denial, and therefore more true love, than any of us? My friends,
let the fierceness of affection, which we have used as an excuse for
many a sin of our own, excuse his listening to a conversation in which
he well deserved to bear a part.”
“Ah,” said Jack, “you make me one of your brotherhood; and see if I do
not dare to suffer as much as any of you! You laugh? Do you fancy none
can use a sword unless he has a baker's dozen of quarterings in his
arms, or that Oxford scholars know only how to handle a pen?”
“Let us try his metal,” said St. Leger. “Here's my sword, Jack; draw,
Coffin! and have at him.”
“Nonsense!” said Coffin, looking somewhat disgusted at the notion of
fighting a man of Jack's rank; but Jack caught at the weapon offered to
him.
“Give me a buckler, and have at any of you!”
“Here's a chair bottom,” cried Cary; and Jack, seizing it in his left,
flourished his sword so fiercely, and called so loudly to Coffin to come
on, that all present found it necessary, unless they wished blood to be
spilt, to turn the matter off with a laugh: but Jack would not hear of
it.
“Nay: if you will let me be of your brotherhood, well and good: but if
not, one or other I will fight: and that's flat.”
“You see, gentlemen,” said Amyas, “we must admit him or die the death;
so we needs must go when Sir Urian drives. Come up, Jack, and take the
oaths. You admit him, gentlemen?”
“Let me but be your chaplain,” said Jack, “and pray for your luck when
you're at the wars. If I do stay at home in a country curacy, 'tis not
much that you need be jealous of me with her, I reckon,” said Jack, with
a pathetical glance at his own stomach.
“Sia!” said Cary: “but if he be admitted, it must be done according to
the solemn forms and ceremonies in such cases provided. Take him into
the next room, Amyas, and prepare him for his initiation.”
“What's that?” asked Amyas, puzzled by the word. But judging from the
corner of Will's eye that initiation was Latin for a practical joke,
he led forth his victim behind the arras again, and waited five minutes
while the room was being darkened, till Frank's voice called to him to
bring in the neophyte.
“John Brimblecombe,” said Frank, in a sepulchral tone, “you cannot be
ignorant, as a scholar and bachelor of Oxford, of that dread sacrament
by which Catiline bound the soul of his fellow-conspirators, in order
that both by the daring of the deed he might have proof of their
sincerity, and by the horror thereof astringe their souls by adamantine
fetters, and Novem-Stygian oaths, to that wherefrom hereafter the
weakness of the flesh might shrink. Wherefore, O Jack! we too have
determined, following that ancient and classical example, to fill, as he
did, a bowl with the lifeblood of our most heroic selves, and to pledge
each other therein, with vows whereat the stars shall tremble in their
spheres, and Luna, blushing, veil her silver cheeks. Your blood alone is
wanted to fill up the goblet. Sit down, John Brimblecombe, and bare your
arm!”
“But, Mr. Frank!--” said Jack, who was as superstitious as any old
wife, and, what with the darkness and the discourse, already in a cold
perspiration.
“But me no buts! or depart as recreant, not by the door like a man, but
up the chimney like a flittermouse.”
“But, Mr. Frank!”
“Thy vital juice, or the chimney! Choose!” roared Cary in his ear.
“Well, if I must,” said Jack; “but it's desperate hard that because you
can't keep faith without these barbarous oaths, I must take them too,
that have kept faith these three years without any.”
At this pathetic appeal Frank nearly melted: but Amyas and Cary had
thrust the victim into a chair and all was prepared for the sacrifice.
“Bind his eyes, according to the classic fashion,” said Will.
“Oh no, dear Mr. Cary; I'll shut them tight enough, I warrant: but not
with your dagger, dear Mr. William--sure, not with your dagger? I can't
afford to lose blood, though I do look lusty--I can't indeed; sure, a
pin would do--I've got one here, to my sleeve, somewhere--Oh!”
“See the fount of generous juice! Flow on, fair stream. How he
bleeds!--pints, quarts! Ah, this proves him to be in earnest!”
“A true lover's blood is always at his fingers' ends.”
“He does not grudge it; of course not. Eh, Jack? What matters an odd
gallon for her sake?”
“For her sake? Nothing, nothing! Take my life, if you will: but--oh,
gentlemen, a surgeon, if you love me! I'm going off--I 'm fainting!”
“Drink, then, quick; drink and swear! Pat his back, Cary. Courage, man!
it will be over in a minute. Now, Frank!--”
And Frank spoke--
“If plighted troth I fail, or secret speech reveal, May Cocytean ghosts
around my pillow squeal; While Ate's brazen claws distringe my spleen
in sunder, And drag me deep to Pluto's keep, 'mid brimstone, smoke, and
thunder!”
“Placetne, domine?”
“Placet!” squeaked Jack, who thought himself at the last gasp, and
gulped down full three-quarters of the goblet which Cary held to his
lips.
“Ugh--Ah--Puh! Mercy on us! It tastes mighty like wine!”
“A proof, my virtuous brother,” said Frank, “first, of thy
abstemiousness, which has thus forgotten what wine tastes like; and
next, of thy pure and heroical affection, by which thy carnal senses
being exalted to a higher and supra-lunar sphere, like those Platonical
daemonizomenoi and enthusiazomenoi (of whom Jamblichus says that they
were insensible to wounds and flame, and much more, therefore, to evil
savors), doth make even the most nauseous draught redolent of that
celestial fragrance, which proceeding, O Jack! from thine own inward
virtue, assimilates by sympathy even outward accidents unto its own
harmony and melody; for fragrance is, as has been said well, the song
of flowers, and sweetness, the music of apples--Ahem! Go in peace, thou
hast conquered!”
“Put him out of the door, Will,” said Amyas, “or he will swoon on our
hands.”
“Give him some sack,” said Frank.
“Not a blessed drop of yours, sir,” said Jack. “I like good wine as well
as any man on earth, and see as little of it; but not a drop of
yours, sirs, after your frumps and flouts about hanging-on and
trencher-scraping. When I first began to love her, I bid good-bye to all
dirty tricks; for I had some one then for whom to keep myself clean.”
And so Jack was sent home, with a pint of good red Alicant wine in him
(more, poor fellow, than he had tasted at once in his life before);
while the rest, in high glee with themselves and the rest of the world,
relighted the candles, had a right merry evening, and parted like good
friends and sensible gentlemen of devon, thinking (all except Frank)
Jack Brimblecombe and his vow the merriest jest they had heard for
many a day. After which they all departed: Amyas and Cary to Winter's
squadron; Frank (as soon as he could travel) to the Court again;
and with him young Basset, whose father Sir Arthur, being in London,
procured for him a page's place in Leicester's household. Fortescue and
Chicester went to their brothers in Dublin; St. Leger to his uncle
the Marshal of Munster; Coffin joined Champernoun and Norris in the
Netherlands; and so the Brotherhood of the Rose was scattered far and
wide, and Mistress Salterne was left alone with her looking-glass.