HOW THE GOLDEN HIND CAME HOME AGAIN
“The spirits of your fathers
Shall start from every wave;
For the deck it was their field of fame,
And ocean was their grave.”
CAMPBELL.
“So you see, my dear Mrs. Hawkins, having the silver, as your own eyes
show you, beside the ores of lead, manganese, and copper, and above all
this gossan (as the Cornish call it), which I suspect to be not merely
the matrix of the ore, but also the very crude form and materia prima
of all metals--you mark me?--If my recipes, which I had from Doctor Dee,
succeed only half so well as I expect, then I refine out the luna, the
silver, lay it by, and transmute the remaining ores into sol, gold.
Whereupon Peru and Mexico become superfluities, and England the mistress
of the globe. Strange, no doubt; distant, no doubt: but possible, my
dear madam, possible!”
“And what good to you if it be, Mr. Gilbert? If you could find a
philosopher's stone to turn sinners into saints, now--but naught save
God's grace can do that; and that last seems ofttimes over long in
coming.” And Mrs. Hawkins sighed.
“But indeed, my dear madam, conceive now.--The Comb Martin mine thus
becomes a gold mine, perhaps inexhaustible; yields me wherewithal to
carry out my North-West patent; meanwhile my brother Humphrey holds
Newfoundland, and builds me fresh ships year by year (for the forests of
pine are boundless) for my China voyage.”
“Sir Humphrey has better thoughts in his dear heart than gold, Mr.
Adrian; a very close and gracious walker he has been this seven year. I
wish my Captain John were so too.”
“And how do you know I have naught better in my mind's eye than gold?
Or, indeed, what better could I have? Is not gold the Spaniard's
strength--the very mainspring of Antichrist? By gold only, therefore,
can we out-wrestle him. You shake your head, but say, dear madam (for
gold England must have), which is better, to make gold bloodlessly at
home, or take it bloodily abroad?”
“Oh, Mr. Gilbert, Mr. Gilbert! is it not written, that those who make
haste to be rich, pierce themselves through with many sorrows? Oh, Mr.
Gilbert! God's blessing is not on it all.”
“Not on you, madam? Be sure that brave Captain John Hawkins's star
told me a different tale, when I cast his nativity for him.--Born under
stormy planets, truly, but under right royal and fortunate ones.”
“Ah, Mr. Adrian! I am a simple body, and you a great philosopher, but
I hold there is no star for the seaman like the Star of Bethlehem; and
that goes with 'peace on earth and good will to men,' and not with such
arms as that, Mr. Adrian. I can't abide to look upon them.”
And she pointed up to one of the bosses of the ribbed oak-roof, on which
was emblazoned the fatal crest which Clarencieux Hervey had granted
years before to her husband, the “Demi-Moor proper, bound.”
“Ah, Mr. Gilbert! since first he went to Guinea after those poor
negroes, little lightness has my heart known; and the very day that that
crest was put up in our grand new house, as the parson read the first
lesson, there was this text in it, Mr. Gilbert, 'Woe to him that
buildeth his house by iniquity, and his chambers by wrong. Shalt thou
live because thou closest thyself in cedar?' And it went into my ears
like fire, Mr. Gilbert, and into my heart like lead; and when the parson
went on, 'Did not thy father eat and drink, and do judgment and justice?
Then it was well with him,' I thought of good old Captain Will; and--I
tell you, Mr. Gilbert, those negroes are on my soul from morning until
night! We are all mighty grand now, and money comes in fast, but the
Lord will require the blood of them at our hands yet, He will!”
“My dearest madam, who can prosper more than you? If your husband copied
the Dons too closely once or twice in the matter of those negroes (which
I do not deny,) was he not punished at once when he lost ships, men, all
but life, at St. Juan d'Ulloa?”
“Ay, yes,” she said; “and that did give me a bit of comfort, especially
when the queen--God save her tender heart!--was so sharp with him for
pity of the poor wretches, but it has not mended him. He is growing fast
like the rest now, Mr. Gilbert, greedy to win, and niggardly to spend
(God forgive him!) and always fretting and plotting for some new gain,
and envying and grudging at Drake, and all who are deeper in the
snare of prosperity than he is. Gold, gold, nothing but gold in
every mouth--there it is! Ah! I mind when Plymouth was a quiet little
God-fearing place as God could smile upon: but ever since my John, and
Sir Francis, and poor Mr. Oxenham found out the way to the Indies, it's
been a sad place. Not a sailor's wife but is crying 'Give, give,' like
the daughters of the horse-leech; and every woman must drive her
husband out across seas to bring her home money to squander on hoods and
farthingales, and go mincing with outstretched necks and wanton eyes;
and they will soon learn to do worse than that, for the sake of gain.
But the Lord's hand will be against their tires and crisping-pins, their
mufflers and farthingales, as it was against the Jews of old. Ah, dear
me!”
The two interlocutors in this dialogue were sitting in a low
oak-panelled room in Plymouth town, handsomely enough furnished, adorned
with carving and gilding and coats of arms, and noteworthy for many
strange knickknacks, Spanish gold and silver vessels on the sideboard;
strange birds and skins, and charts and rough drawings of coast which
hung about the room; while over the fireplace, above the portrait of old
Captain Will Hawkins, pet of Henry the Eighth, hung the Spanish ensign
which Captain John had taken in fair fight at Rio de la Hacha fifteen
years before, when, with two hundred men, he seized the town in despite
of ten hundred Spanish soldiers, and watered his ship triumphantly at
the enemy's wells.
The gentleman was a tall fair man, with a broad and lofty forehead,
wrinkled with study, and eyes weakened by long poring over the crucible
and the furnace.
The lady had once been comely enough, but she was aged and worn, as
sailors' wives are apt to be, by many sorrows. Many a sad day had she
had already; for although John Hawkins, port-admiral of Plymouth, and
patriarch of British shipbuilders, was a faithful husband enough, and
as ready to forgive as he was to quarrel, yet he was obstinate and
ruthless, and in spite of his religiosity (for all men were religious
then) was by no means a “consistent walker.”
And sadder days were in store for her, poor soul. Nine years hence she
would be asked to name her son's brave new ship, and would christen it
The Repentance, giving no reason in her quiet steadfast way (so says
her son Sir Richard) but that “Repentance was the best ship in which
we could sail to the harbor of heaven;” and she would hear that Queen
Elizabeth, complaining of the name for an unlucky one, had re-christened
her The Dainty, not without some by-quip, perhaps, at the character
of her most dainty captain, Richard Hawkins, the complete seaman and
Euphuist afloat, of whom, perhaps, more hereafter.
With sad eyes Mrs. (then Lady) Hawkins would see that gallant bark sail
Westward-ho, to go the world around, as many another ship sailed; and
then wait, as many a mother beside had waited, for the sail which never
returned; till, dim and uncertain, came tidings of her boy fighting for
four days three great Armadas (for the coxcomb had his father's heart in
him after all), a prisoner, wounded, ruined, languishing for weary years
in Spanish prisons. And a sadder day than that was in store, when a
gallant fleet should round the Ram Head, not with drum and trumpet, but
with solemn minute-guns, and all flags half-mast high, to tell her
that her terrible husband's work was done, his terrible heart broken by
failure and fatigue, and his body laid by Drake's beneath the far-off
tropic seas.
And if, at the close of her eventful life, one gleam of sunshine opened
for a while, when her boy Richard returned to her bosom from his Spanish
prison, to be knighted for his valor, and made a privy councillor for
his wisdom; yet soon, how soon, was the old cloud to close in again
above her, until her weary eyes should open in the light of Paradise.
For that son dropped dead, some say at the very council-table, leaving
behind him naught but broken fortunes, and huge purposes which never
were fulfilled; and the stormy star of that bold race was set forever,
and Lady Hawkins bowed her weary head and died, the groan of those
stolen negroes ringing in her ears, having lived long enough to see her
husband's youthful sin become a national institution, and a national
curse for generations yet unborn.
I know not why she opened her heart that night to Adrian Gilbert, with
a frankness which she would hardly have dared to use to her own family.
Perhaps it was that Adrian, like his great brothers, Humphrey and
Raleigh, was a man full of all lofty and delicate enthusiasms, tender
and poetical, such as women cling to when their hearts are lonely; but
so it was; and Adrian, half ashamed of his own ambitious dreams, sate
looking at her a while in silence; and then--
“The Lord be with you, dearest lady. Strange, how you women sit at home
to love and suffer, while we men rush forth to break our hearts and
yours against rocks of our own seeking! Ah well! were it not for
Scripture, I should have thought that Adam, rather than Eve, had been
the one who plucked the fruit of the forbidden tree.”
“We women, I fear; did the deed nevertheless; for we bear the doom of it
our lives long.”
“You always remind me, madam, of my dear Mrs. Leigh of Burrough, and her
counsels.”
“Do you see her often? I hear of her as one of the Lord's most precious
vessels.”
“I would have done more ere now than see her,” said he with a blush,
“had she allowed me: but she lives only for the memory of her husband
and the fame of her noble sons.”
As he spoke the door opened, and in walked, wrapped in his rough
sea-gown, none other than one of those said noble sons.
Adrian turned pale.
“Amyas Leigh! What brings you hither? how fares my brother? Where is the
ship?”
“Your brother is well, Mr. Gilbert. The Golden Hind is gone on to
Dartmouth, with Mr. Hayes. I came ashore here, meaning to go north to
Bideford, ere I went to London. I called at Drake's just now, but he was
away.”
“The Golden Hind? What brings her home so soon?”
“Yet welcome ever, sir,” said Mrs. Hawkins. “This is a great surprise,
though. Captain John did not look for you till next year.”
Amyas was silent.
“Something is wrong!” cried Adrian. “Speak!”
Amyas tried, but could not.
“Will you drive a man mad, sir? Has the adventure failed? You said my
brother was well.”
“He is well.”
“Then what--Why do you look at me in that fashion, sir?” and springing
up, Adrian rushed forward, and held the candle to Amyas's face.
Amyas's lip quivered, as he laid his hand on Adrian's shoulder.
“Your great and glorious brother, sir, is better bestowed than in
settling Newfoundland.”
“Dead?” shrieked Adrian.
“He is with the God whom he served!”
“He was always with Him, like Enoch: parable me no parables, if you love
me, sir!”
“And, like Enoch, he was not; for God took him.”
Adrian clasped his hands over his forehead, and leaned against the
table.
“Go on, sir, go on. God will give me strength to hear all.”
And gradually Amyas opened to Adrian that tragic story, which Mr. Hayes
has long ago told far too well to allow a second edition of it from me:
of the unruliness of the men, ruffians, as I said before, caught up at
hap-hazard; of conspiracies to carry off the ships, plunder of fishing
vessels, desertions multiplying daily; licenses from the general to the
lazy and fearful to return home: till Adrian broke out with a groan--
“From him? Conspired against him? Deserted from him? Dotards, buzzards!
Where would they have found such another leader?”
“Your illustrious brother, sir,” said Amyas, “if you will pardon me, was
a very great philosopher, but not so much of a general.”
“General, sir? Where was braver man?”
“Not on God's earth, but that does not make a general, sir. If Cortez
had been brave and no more, Mexico would have been Mexico still. The
truth is, sir, Cortez, like my Captain Drake, knew when to hang a man;
and your great brother did not.”
Amyas, as I suppose, was right. Gilbert was a man who could be angry
enough at baseness or neglect, but who was too kindly to punish it; he
was one who could form the wisest and best-digested plans, but who could
not stoop to that hail-fellow-well-met drudgery among his subordinates
which has been the talisman of great captains.
Then Amyas went on to tell the rest of his story; the setting sail from
St. John's to discover the southward coast; Sir Humphrey's chivalrous
determination to go in the little Squirrel of only ten tons, and
“overcharged with nettings, fights, and small ordnance,” not only
because she was more fit to examine the creeks, but because he had heard
of some taunt against him among the men, that he was afraid of the sea.
After that, woe on woe; how, seven days after they left Cape Raz, their
largest ship, the Delight, after she had “most part of the night” (I
quote Hayes), “like the swan that singeth before her death, continued in
sounding of trumpets, drums, and fifes, also winding of the comets and
hautboys, and, in the end of their jollity, left off with the battle and
doleful knells,” struck the next day (the Golden Hind and the Squirrel
sheering off just in time) upon unknown shoals; where were lost all but
fourteen, and among them Frank's philosopher friend, poor Budaeus; and
those who escaped, after all horrors of cold and famine, were cast on
shore in Newfoundland. How, worn out with hunger and want of clothes,
the crews of the two remaining ships persuaded Sir Humphrey to sail
toward England on the 31st of August; and on “that very instant, even in
winding about,” beheld close alongside “a very lion in shape, hair, and
color, not swimming, but sliding on the water, with his whole body; who
passed along, turning his head to and fro, yawning and gaping wide,
with ugly demonstration of long teeth and glaring eyes; and to bid us
farewell (coming right against the Hind) he sent forth a horrible voice,
roaring or bellowing as doth a lion.” “What opinion others had thereof,
and chiefly the general himself, I forbear to deliver; but he took it
for bonum omen, rejoicing that he was to war against such an enemy, if
it were the devil.”
“And the devil it was, doubtless,” said Adrian, “the roaring lion who
goes about seeking whom he may devour.”
“He has not got your brother, at least,” quoth Amyas.
“No,” rejoined Mrs. Hawkins (smile not, reader, for those were days in
which men believed in the devil); “he roared for joy to think how many
poor souls would be left still in heathen darkness by Sir Humphrey's
death. God be with that good knight, and send all mariners where he is
now!”
Then Amyas told the last scene; how, when they were off the Azores, the
storms came on heavier than ever, with “terrible seas, breaking short
and pyramid-wise,” till, on the 9th September, the tiny Squirrel nearly
foundered and yet recovered; “and the general, sitting abaft with a
book in his hand, cried out to us in the Hind so oft as we did approach
within hearing, 'We are as near heaven by sea as by land,' reiterating
the same speech, well beseeming a soldier resolute in Jesus Christ, as I
can testify he was.
“The same Monday, about twelve of the clock, or not long after, the
frigate (the Squirrel) being ahead of us in the Golden Hind, suddenly
her lights were out; and withal our watch cried, the general was cast
away, which was true; for in that moment the frigate was devoured and
swallowed up of the sea.”
And so ended (I have used Hayes' own words) Amyas Leigh's story.
“Oh, my brother! my brother!” moaned poor Adrian; “the glory of his
house, the glory of Devon!”
“Ah! what will the queen say?” asked Mrs. Hawkins through her tears.
“Tell me,” asked Adrian, “had he the jewel on when he died?”
“The queen's jewel? He always wore that, and his own posy too, 'Mutare
vel timere sperno.' He wore it; and he lived it.”
“Ay,” said Adrian, “the same to the last!”
“Not quite that,” said Amyas. “He was a meeker man latterly than he used
to be. As he said himself once, a better refiner than any whom he had on
board had followed him close all the seas over, and purified him in the
fire. And gold seven times tried he was, when God, having done His work
in him, took him home at last.”
And so the talk ended. There was no doubt that the expedition had
been an utter failure; Adrian was a ruined man; and Amyas had lost his
venture.
Adrian rose, and begged leave to retire; he must collect himself.
“Poor gentleman!” said Mrs. Hawkins; “it is little else he has left to
collect.”
“Or I either,” said Amyas. “I was going to ask you to lend me one of
your son's shirts, and five pounds to get myself and my men home.”
“Five? Fifty, Mr. Leigh! God forbid that John Hawkins's wife should
refuse her last penny to a distressed mariner, and he a gentleman born.
But you must eat and drink.”
“It's more than I have done for many a day worth speaking of.”
And Amyas sat down in his rags to a good supper, while Mrs. Hawkins told
him all the news which she could of his mother, whom Adrian Gilbert had
seen a few months before in London; and then went on, naturally enough,
to the Bideford news.
“And by the by, Captain Leigh, I've sad news for you from your place;
and I had it from one who was there at the time. You must know a Spanish
captain, a prisoner--”
“What, the one I sent home from Smerwick?”
“You sent? Mercy on us! Then, perhaps, you've heard--”
“How can I have heard? What?”
“That he's gone off, the villain?”
“Without paying his ransom?”
“I can't say that; but there's a poor innocent young maid gone off with
him, one Salterne's daughter--the Popish serpent!”
“Rose Salterne, the mayor's daughter, the Rose of Torridge!”
“That's her. Bless your dear soul, what ails you?”
Amyas had dropped back in his seat as if he had been shot; but he
recovered himself before kind Mrs. Hawkins could rush to the cupboard
for cordials.
“You'll forgive me, madam; but I'm weak from the sea; and your good ale
has turned me a bit dizzy, I think.”
“Ay, yes, 'tis too, too heavy, till you've been on shore a while. Try
the aqua vitae; my Captain John has it right good; and a bit too fond of
it too, poor dear soul, between whiles, Heaven forgive him!”
So she poured some strong brandy and water down Amyas's throat, in spite
of his refusals, and sent him to bed, but not to sleep; and after a
night of tossing, he started for Bideford, having obtained the means for
so doing from Mrs. Hawkins.