HOW THE VIRGINIA FLEET WAS STOPPED BY THE QUEEN'S COMMAND
“The daughter of debate,
That discord still doth sow,
Shall reap no gain where former rule
Hath taught still peace to grow.
No foreign banish'd wight
Shall anker in this port
Our realm it brooks no stranger's force;
Let them elsewhere resort.”
QU. ELIZABETH. 1569.
And now Amyas is settled quietly at home again; and for the next twelve
months little passes worthy of record in these pages. Yeo has installed
himself as major domo, with no very definite functions, save those of
walking about everywhere at Amyas's heels like a lank gray wolf-hound,
and spending his evenings at the fireside, as a true old sailor
does, with his Bible on his knee, and his hands busy in manufacturing
numberless nicknacks, useful and useless, for every member of the
family, and above all for Ayacanora, whom he insults every week by
humbly offering some toy only fit for a child; at which she pouts, and
is reproved by Mrs. Leigh, and then takes the gift, and puts it away
never to look at it again. For her whole soul is set upon being
an English maid; and she runs about all day long after Mrs. Leigh,
insisting upon learning the mysteries of the kitchen and the still-room,
and, above all, the art of making clothes for herself, and at last for
everybody in Northam. For first, she will be a good housewife, like Mrs.
Leigh; and next a new idea has dawned on her: that of helping others.
To the boundless hospitality of the savage she has been of course
accustomed: but to give to those who can give nothing in return, is a
new thought. She sees Mrs. Leigh spending every spare hour in working
for the poor, and visiting them in their cottages. She sees Amyas, after
public thanks in church for his safe return, giving away money, food,
what not, in Northam, Appledore, and Bideford; buying cottages and
making them almshouses for worn-out mariners; and she is told that
this is his thank-offering to God. She is puzzled; her notion of
a thank-offering was rather that of the Indians, and indeed of the
Spaniards,--sacrifices of human victims, and the bedizenment of the
Great Spirit's sanctuary with their skulls and bones. Not that Amyas,
as a plain old-fashioned churchman, was unmindful of the good old
instinctive rule, that something should be given to the Church itself;
for the vicar of Northam was soon resplendent with a new surplice, and
what was more, the altar with a splendid flagon and salver of plate
(lost, I suppose, in the civil wars) which had been taken in the great
galleon. Ayacanora could understand that: but the almsgiving she could
not, till Mrs. Leigh told her, in her simple way, that whosoever gave
to the poor, gave to the Great Spirit; for the Great Spirit was in them,
and in Ayacanora too, if she would be quiet and listen to him, instead
of pouting, and stamping, and doing nothing but what she liked. And the
poor child took in that new thought like a child, and worked her fingers
to the bone for all the old dames in Northam, and went about with Mrs.
Leigh, lovely and beloved, and looked now and then out from under her
long black eyelashes to see if she was winning a smile from Amyas. And
on the day on which she won one, she was good all day; and on the day on
which she did not, she was thoroughly naughty, and would have worn out
the patience of any soul less chastened than Mrs. Leigh's. But as for
the pomp and glory of her dress, there was no keeping it within bounds;
and she swept into church each Sunday bedizened in Spanish finery, with
such a blaze and rustle, that the good vicar had to remonstrate humbly
with Mrs. Leigh on the disturbance which she caused to the eyes and
thoughts of all his congregation. To which Ayacanora answered, that she
was not thinking about them, and they need not think about her; and that
if the Piache (in plain English, the conjuror), as she supposed, wanted
a present, he might have all her Mexican feather-dresses; she would
not wear them--they were wild Indian things, and she was an English
maid--but they would just do for a Piache; and so darted upstairs,
brought them down, and insisted so stoutly on arraying the vicar
therein, that the good man beat a swift retreat. But he carried off
with him, nevertheless, one of the handsomest mantles, which, instead
of selling it, he converted cleverly enough into an altar-cloth; and for
several years afterwards, the communion at Northam was celebrated upon a
blaze of emerald, azure, and crimson, which had once adorned the sinful
body of some Aztec prince.
So Ayacanora flaunted on; while Amyas watched her, half amused, half in
simple pride of her beauty; and looked around at all gazers, as much as
to say, “See what a fine bird I have brought home!”
Another great trouble which she gave Mrs. Leigh was her conduct to the
ladies of the neighborhood. They came, of course, one and all, not only
to congratulate Mrs. Leigh, but to get a peep at the fair savage; but
the fair savage snubbed them all round, from the vicar's wife to Lady
Grenville herself, so effectually, that few attempted a second visit.
Mrs. Leigh remonstrated, and was answered by floods of tears. “They only
come to stare at a poor wild Indian girl, and she would not be made a
show of. She was like a queen once, and every one obeyed her; but here
every one looked down upon her.” But when Mrs. Leigh asked her, whether
she would sooner go back to the forests, the poor girl clung to her like
a baby, and entreated not to be sent away, “She would sooner be a slave
in the kitchen here, than go back to the bad people.”
And so on, month after month of foolish storm and foolish sunshine; but
she was under the shadow of one in whom was neither storm nor sunshine,
but a perpetual genial calm of soft gray weather, which tempered down
to its own peacefulness all who entered its charmed influence; and the
outbursts grew more and more rare, and Ayacanora more and more rational,
though no more happy, day by day.
And one by one small hints came out which made her identity certain, at
least in the eyes of Mrs. Leigh and Yeo. After she had become familiar
with the sight of houses, she gave them to understand that she had seen
such things before. The red cattle, too, seemed not unknown to her;
the sheep puzzled her for some time, and at last she gave Mrs. Leigh to
understand that they were too small.
“Ah, madam,” quoth Yeo, who caught at every straw, “it is because she
has been accustomed to those great camel sheep (llamas they call them)
in Peru.”
But Ayacanora's delight was a horse. The use of tame animals at all was
a daily wonder to her; but that a horse could be ridden was the crowning
miracle of all; and a horse she would ride, and after plaguing Amyas for
one in vain (for he did not want to break her pretty neck), she proposed
confidentially to Yeo to steal one, and foiled in that, went to the
vicar and offered to barter all her finery for his broken-kneed pony.
But the vicar was too honest to drive so good a bargain, and the matter
ended, in Amyas buying her a jennet, which she learned in a fortnight to
ride like a very Gaucho.
And now awoke another curious slumbering reminiscence. For one day, at
Lady Grenville's invitation, the whole family went over to Stow; Mrs.
Leigh soberly on a pillion behind the groom, Ayacanora cantering round
and round upon the moors like a hound let loose, and trying to make
Amyas ride races with her. But that night, sleeping in the same room
with Mrs. Leigh, she awoke shrieking, and sobbed out a long story how
the “Old ape of Panama,” her especial abomination, had come to her
bedside and dragged her forth into the courtyard, and how she had
mounted a horse and ridden with an Indian over great moors and high
mountains down into a dark wood, and there the Indian and the horses
vanished, and she found herself suddenly changed once more into a
little savage child. So strong was the impression, that she could not be
persuaded that the thing had not happened, if not that night, at least
some night or other. So Mrs. Leigh at last believed the same, and told
the company next morning in her pious way how the Lord had revealed in
a vision to the poor child who she was, and how she had been exposed in
the forests by her jealous step-father, and neither Sir Richard nor his
wife could doubt but that hers was the true solution. It was probable
that Don Xararte, though his home was Panama, had been often at Quito,
for Yeo had seen him come on board the Lima ship at Guayaquil, one
of the nearest ports. This would explain her having been found by the
Indians beyond Cotopaxi, the nearest peak of the Eastern Andes, if, as
was but too likely, the old man, believing her to be Oxenham's child,
had conceived the fearful vengeance of exposing her in the forests.
Other little facts came to light one by one. They were all connected
(as was natural in a savage) with some animal or other natural object.
Whatever impressions her morals or affections had received, had been
erased by the long spiritual death of that forest sojourn; and Mrs.
Leigh could not elicit from her a trace of feeling about her mother, or
recollection of any early religious teaching. This link, however, was
supplied at last, and in this way.
Sir Richard had brought home an Indian with him from Virginia. Of his
original name I am not sure, but he was probably the “Wanchese” whose
name occurs with that of “Manteo.”
This man was to be baptized in the church at Bideford by the name of
Raleigh, his sponsors being most probably Raleigh himself, who may have
been there on Virginian business, and Sir Richard Grenville. All the
notabilities of Bideford came, of course, to see the baptism of the
first “Red man” whose foot had ever trodden British soil, and the mayor
and corporation-men appeared in full robes, with maces and tipstaffs, to
do honor to that first-fruits of the Gospel in the West.
Mrs. Leigh went, as a matter of course, and Ayacanora would needs go
too. She was very anxious to know what they were going to do with the
“Carib.”
“To make him a Christian.”
“Why did they not make her one?”
Because she was one already. They were sure that she had been christened
as soon as she was born. But she was not sure, and pouted a good deal
at the chance of an “ugly red Carib” being better off than she was.
However, all assembled duly; the stately son of the forest, now
transformed into a footman of Sir Richard's, was standing at the font;
the service was half performed when a heavy sigh, or rather groan, made
all eyes turn, and Ayacanora sank fainting upon Mrs. Leigh's bosom.
She was carried out, and to a neighboring house; and when she came to
herself, told a strange story. How, as she was standing there trying to
recollect whether she too had ever been baptized, the church seemed
to grow larger, the priest's dress richer; the walls were covered with
pictures, and above the altar, in jewelled robes, stood a lady, and in
her arms a babe. Soft music sounded in her ears; the air was full (on
that she insisted much) of fragrant odor which filled the church like
mist; and through it she saw not one, but many Indians, standing by the
font; and a lady held her by the hand, and she was a little girl again.
And after, many questionings, so accurate was her recollection, not only
of the scene, but of the building, that Yeo pronounced:
“A christened woman she is, madam, if Popish christening is worth
calling such, and has seen Indians christened too in the Cathedral
Church at Quito, the inside whereof I know well enough, and too well,
for I sat there three mortal hours in a San Benito, to hear a friar
preach his false doctrines, not knowing whether I was to be burnt or not
next day.”
So Ayacanora went home to Burrough, and Raleigh the Indian to
Sir Richard's house. The entry of his baptism still stands,
crooked-lettered, in the old parchment register of the Bideford baptisms
for 1587-3:
“Raleigh, a Winganditoian: March 26.”
His name occurs once more, a year and a month after:
“Rawly, a Winganditoian, April 1589.”
But it is not this time among the baptisms. The free forest wanderer has
pined in vain for his old deer-hunts amid the fragrant cedar woods,
and lazy paddlings through the still lagoons, where water-lilies sleep
beneath the shade of great magnolias, wreathed with clustered vines; and
now he is away to “happier hunting-grounds,” and all that is left of
him below sleeps in the narrow town churchyard, blocked in with dingy
houses, whose tenants will never waste a sigh upon the Indian's grave.
There the two entries stand, unto this day; and most pathetic they have
seemed to me; a sort of emblem and first-fruits of the sad fate of that
worn-out Red race, to whom civilization came too late to save, but not
too late to hasten their decay.
But though Amyas lay idle, England did not. That spring saw another and
a larger colony sent out by Raleigh to Virginia, under the charge of one
John White. Raleigh had written more than once, entreating Amyas to take
the command, which if he had done, perhaps the United States had begun
to exist twenty years sooner than they actually did. But his mother had
bound him by a solemn promise (and who can wonder at her for asking, or
at him for giving it?) to wait at home with her twelve months at least.
So, instead of himself, he sent five hundred pounds, which I suppose
are in Virginia (virtually at least) until this day; for they never came
back again to him.
But soon came a sharper trial of Amyas's promise to his mother; and
one which made him, for the first time in his life, moody, peevish, and
restless, at the thought that others were fighting Spaniards, while
he was sitting idle at home. For his whole soul was filling fast with
sullen malice against Don Guzman. He was losing the “single eye,” and
his whole body was no longer full of light. He had entered into the
darkness in which every man walks who hates his brother; and it lay upon
him like a black shadow day and night. No company, too, could be more
fit to darken that shadow than Salvation Yeo's. The old man grew more
stern in his fanaticism day by day, and found a too willing listener in
his master; and Mrs. Leigh was (perhaps for the first and last time
in her life) seriously angry, when she heard the two coolly debating
whether they had not committed a grievous sin in not killing the Spanish
prisoners on board the galleon.
It must be said, however (as the plain facts set down in this book
testify), that if such was the temper of Englishmen at that day,
the Spaniards had done a good deal to provoke it; and were just then
attempting to do still more.
For now we are approaching the year 1588, “which an astronomer of
Konigsberg, above a hundred years before, foretold would be an admirable
year, and the German chronologers presaged would be the climacterical
year of the world.”
The prophecies may stand for what they are worth; but they were at least
fulfilled. That year was, indeed, the climacterical year of the world;
and decided once and for all the fortunes of the European nations, and
of the whole continent of America.
No wonder, then, if (as has happened in each great crisis of the human
race) some awful instinct that The Day of the Lord was at hand, some dim
feeling that there was war in heaven, and that the fiends of darkness
and the angels of light were arrayed against each other in some mighty
struggle for the possession of the souls of men, should have tried
to express itself in astrologic dreams, and, as was the fashion then,
attributed to the “rulers of the planetary houses” some sympathy with
the coming world-tragedy.
But, for the wise, there needed no conjunction of planets to tell them
that the day was near at hand, when the long desultory duel between
Spain and England would end, once and for all, in some great
death-grapple. The war, as yet, had been confined to the Netherlands, to
the West Indies, and the coasts and isles of Africa; to the quarters,
in fact, where Spain was held either to have no rights, or to have
forfeited them by tyranny. But Spain itself had been respected by
England, as England had by Spain; and trade to Spanish ports went on as
usual, till, in the year 1585, the Spaniard, without warning, laid an
embargo on all English ships coming to his European shores. They were to
be seized, it seemed, to form part of an enormous armament, which was to
attack and crush, once and for all--whom? The rebellious Netherlanders,
said the Spaniards: but the queen, the ministry, and, when it was just
not too late, the people of England, thought otherwise. England was the
destined victim; so, instead of negotiating, in order to avoid fighting,
they fought in order to produce negotiation. Drake, Frobisher, and
Carlisle, as we have seen, swept the Spanish Main with fire and sword,
stopping the Indian supplies; while Walsingham (craftiest, and yet most
honest of mortals) prevented, by some mysterious financial operation,
the Venetian merchants from repairing the Spaniards' loss by a loan; and
no Armada came that year.
In the meanwhile, the Jesuits, here and abroad, made no secret, among
their own dupes, of the real objects of the Spanish armament. The
impious heretics,--the Drakes and Raleighs, Grenvilles and Cavendishes,
Hawkinses and Frobishers, who had dared to violate that hidden sanctuary
of just half the globe, which the pope had bestowed on the defender of
the true faith,--a shameful ruin, a terrible death awaited them, when
their sacrilegious barks should sink beneath the thunder of Spanish
cannon, blessed by the pope, and sanctified with holy water and prayer
to the service of “God and his Mother.” Yes, they would fall, and
England with them. The proud islanders, who had dared to rebel against
St. Peter, and to cast off the worship of “Mary,” should bow their
necks once more under the yoke of the Gospel. Their so-called queen,
illegitimate, excommunicate, contumacious, the abettor of free-trade,
the defender of the Netherlands, the pillar of false doctrine throughout
Europe, should be sent in chains across the Alps, to sue for her life at
the feet of the injured and long-suffering father of mankind, while
his nominee took her place upon the throne which she had long since
forfeited by her heresy.
“What nobler work? How could the Church of God be more gloriously
propagated? How could higher merit be obtained by faithful Catholics?
It must succeed. Spain was invincible in valor, inexhaustible in wealth.
Heaven itself offered them an opportunity. They had nothing now to fear
from the Turk, for they had concluded a truce with him; nothing from the
French, for they were embroiled in civil war. The heavens themselves
had called upon Spain to fulfil her heavenly mission, and restore to
the Church's crown this brightest and richest of her lost jewels. The
heavens themselves called to a new crusade. The saints, whose altars
the English had rifled and profaned, called them to a new crusade. The
Virgin Queen of Heaven, whose boundless stores of grace the English
spurned, called them to a new crusade. Justly incensed at her own wrongs
and indignities, that 'ever-gracious Virgin, refuge of sinners, and
mother of fair love, and holy hope,' adjured by their knightly honor all
valiant cavaliers to do battle in her cause against the impious harlot
who assumed her titles, received from her idolatrous flatterers the
homage due to Mary alone, and even (for Father Parsons had asserted it,
therefore it must be true) had caused her name to be substituted for
that of Mary in the Litanies of the Church. Let all who wore within a
manly heart, without a manly sword, look on the woes of 'Mary,'--her
shame, her tears, her blushes, her heart pierced through with daily
wounds, from heretic tongues, and choose between her and Elizabeth!”
So said Parsons, Allen, and dozens more; and said more than this, too,
and much which one had rather not repeat; and were somewhat surprised
and mortified to find that their hearers, though they granted the
premises, were too dull or carnal to arrive at the same conclusion. The
English lay Romanists, almost to a man, had hearts sounder than their
heads, and, howsoever illogically, could not help holding to the strange
superstition that, being Englishmen, they were bound to fight for
England. So the hapless Jesuits, who had been boasting for years past
that the persecuted faithful throughout the island would rise as one man
to fight under the blessed banner of the pope and Spain, found that the
faithful, like Demas of old, forsook them and “went after this present
world;” having no objection, of course, to the restoration of Popery:
but preferring some more comfortable method than an invasion which would
inevitably rob them of their ancestral lands and would seat needy and
greedy Castilians in their old country houses, to treat their tenants as
they had treated the Indians of Hispaniola, and them as they had treated
the caciques.
But though the hearts of men in that ungodly age were too hard to melt
at the supposed woes of the Mary who reigned above, and too dull to turn
rebels and traitors for the sake of those thrones and principalities in
supra-lunar spheres which might be in her gift: yet there was a Mary
who reigned (or ought to reign) below, whose woes (like her gifts) were
somewhat more palpable to the carnal sense. A Mary who, having every
comfort and luxury (including hounds and horses) found for her by the
English Government, at an expense which would be now equal to some
twenty thousand a year, could afford to employ the whole of her jointure
as Queen Dowager of France (probably equal to fifty thousand a year
more), in plotting the destruction of the said government, and the
murder of its queen; a Mary who, if she prospered as she ought, might
have dukedoms, and earldoms, fair lands and castles to bestow on her
faithful servants; a Mary, finally, who contrived by means of an angel
face, a serpent tongue, and a heart (as she said herself) as hard as
a diamond, to make every weak man fall in love with her, and, what was
worse, fancy more or less that she was in love with him.
Of her the Jesuits were not unmindful; and found it convenient, indeed,
to forget awhile the sorrows of the Queen of Heaven in those of the
Queen of Scots. Not that they cared much for those sorrows; but they
were an excellent stock-in-trade. She was a Romanist; she was “beautiful
and unfortunate,” a virtue which, like charity, hides the multitude of
sins; and therefore she was a convenient card to play in the great game
of Rome against the Queen and people of England; and played the poor
card was, till it got torn up by over-using. Into her merits or demerits
I do not enter deeply here. Let her rest in peace.
To all which the people of England made a most practical and terrible
answer. From the highest noble to the lowest peasant, arose one
simultaneous plebiscitum: “We are tired of these seventeen years of
chicanery and terror. This woman must die: or the commonweal of England
perish!” We all know which of the two alternatives was chosen.
All Europe stood aghast: but rather with astonishment at English
audacity, than with horror at English wickedness. Mary's own French
kinsfolk had openly given her up as too bad to be excused, much less
assisted. Her own son blustered a little to the English ambassador;
for the majesty of kings was invaded: whereon Walsingham said in open
council, that “the queen should send him a couple of hounds, and that
would set all right.” Which sage advice (being acted on, and some deer
sent over and above) was so successful that the pious mourner, having
run off (Randolph says, like a baby to see the deer in their cart),
returned for answer that he would “thereafter depend wholly upon her
majesty, and serve her fortune against all the world; and that he only
wanted now two of her majesty's yeoman prickers, and a couple of her
grooms of the deer.” The Spaniard was not sorry on the whole for the
catastrophe; for all that had kept him from conquering England long ago
was the fear lest, after it was done, he might have had to put the crown
thereof on Mary's head, instead of his own. But Mary's death was as
convenient a stalking-horse to him as to the pope; and now the Armada
was coming in earnest.
Elizabeth began negotiating; but fancy not that she does nothing more,
as the following letter testifies, written about midsummer, 1587.
“F. Drake to Captain Amyas Leigh. This with haste.
“DEAR LAD,
“As I said to her most glorious majesty, I say to you now. There are two
ways of facing an enemy. The one to stand off, and cry, 'Try that again,
and I'll strike thee'; the other to strike him first, and then, 'Try
that at all, and I'll strike thee again.' Of which latter counsel her
majesty so far approves, that I go forthwith (tell it not in Gath) down
the coast, to singe the king of Spain's beard (so I termed it to her
majesty, she laughing), in which if I leave so much as a fishing-boat
afloat from the Groyne unto Cadiz, it will not be with my good will, who
intend that if he come this year, he shall come by swimming and not by
sailing. So if you are still the man I have known you, bring a good ship
round to Plymouth within the month, and away with me for hard blows and
hard money, the feel of both of which you know pretty well by now.
“Thine lovingly,
“F. Drake.”
Amyas clutched his locks over this letter, and smoked more tobacco the
day he got it than had ever before been consumed at once in England. But
he kept true to his promise; and this was his reply:--
“Amyas Leigh to the Worshipful Sir F. Drake, Admiral of her Majesty's
Fleet in Plymouth.
“MOST HONORED SIR,
“A magician keeps me here, in bilboes for which you have no picklock;
namely, a mother who forbids. The loss is mine: but Antichrist I can
fight any year (for he will not die this bout, nor the next), while my
mother--but I will not trouble your patience more than to ask from you
to get me news, if you can, from any prisoners of one Don Guzman Maria
Magdalena Sotomayor de Soto; whether he is in Spain or in the Indies;
and what the villain does, and where he is to be found. This only I
entreat of you, and so remain behind with a heavy heart.
“Yours to command in all else, and I would to Heaven, in this also,
“AMYAS LEIGH.”
I am sorry to have to say, that after having thus obeyed his mother,
Master Amyas, as men are too apt to do, revenged himself on her by being
more and more cross and disagreeable. But his temper amended much,
when, a few months after, Drake returned triumphant, having destroyed
a hundred sail in Cadiz alone, taken three great galleons with immense
wealth on board, burnt the small craft all along the shore, and offered
battle to Santa Cruz at the mouth of the Tagus. After which it is
unnecessary to say, that the Armada was put off for yet another year.
This news, indeed, gave Amyas little comfort; for he merely observed,
grumbling, that Drake had gone and spoiled everybody else's sport: but
what cheered him was news from Drake that Don Guzman had been heard of
from the captain of one of the galleons; that he was high in favor in
Spain, and commandant of soldiers on board one of the largest of the
marquis's ships.
And when Amyas heard that, a terrible joy took possession of him. When
the Armada came, as come it would, he should meet his enemy at last! He
could wait now patiently: if--and he shuddered at himself, as he found
himself in the very act of breathing a prayer that Don Guzman might not
die before that meeting.
In the meanwhile, rumor flew thousand-tongued through the length and
breadth of the land; of vast preparations going on in Spain and Italy;
of timber felled long before for some such purpose, brought down to the
sea, and sawn out for shipbuilding; of casting of cannon, and drilling
of soldiers; of ships in hundreds collecting at Lisbon; of a crusade
preached by Pope Sixtus the Fifth, who had bestowed the kingdom of
England on the Spaniard, to be enjoyed by him as vassal tributary to
Rome; of a million of gold to be paid by the pope, one-half down at
once, the other half when London was taken; of Cardinal Allen writing
and printing busily in the Netherlands, calling on all good Englishmen
to carry out, by rebelling against Elizabeth, the bull of Sixtus the
Fifth, said (I blush to repeat it) to have been dictated by the Holy
Ghost; of Inquisitors getting ready fetters and devil's engines of all
sorts; of princes and noblemen, flocking from all quarters, gentlemen
selling their private estates to fit out ships; how the Prince of
Melito, the Marquess of Burgrave, Vespasian Gonzaga, John Medicis,
Amadas of Savoy, in short, the illegitimate sons of all the southern
princes, having no lands of their own, were coming to find that
necessary of life in this pleasant little wheat-garden. Nay, the Duke of
Medina Sidonia had already engaged Mount-Edgecombe for himself, as the
fairest jewel of the south; which when good old Sir Richard Edgecombe
heard, he observed quietly, that in 1555 he had the pleasure of
receiving at his table at one time the admirals of England, Spain, and
the Netherlands, and therefore had experience in entertaining Dons; and
made preparations for the visit by filling his cellars with gunpowder,
with a view to a house-warming and feu-de-joie on the occasion. But as
old Fuller says, “The bear was not yet killed, and Medina Sidonia might
have catched a great cold, had he no other clothes to wear than the skin
thereof.”
So flew rumor, false and true, till poor John Bull's wits were well-nigh
turned: but to the very last, after his lazy fashion, he persuaded
himself that it would all come right somehow; that it was too great news
to be true; that if it was true, the expedition was only meant for the
Netherlands; and, in short, sat quietly over his beef and beer for many
a day after the French king had sent him fair warning, and the queen,
the ministry, and the admirals had been assuring him again and again
that he, and not the Dutchman, was the destined prey of this great
flight of ravenous birds.
At last the Spaniard, in order that there should be no mistake about the
matter, kindly printed a complete bill of the play, to be seen still in
Van Meteran, for the comfort of all true Catholics, and confusion of all
pestilent heretics; which document, of course, the seminary priests used
to enforce the duty of helping the invaders, and the certainty of their
success; and from their hands it soon passed into those of the devout
ladies, who were not very likely to keep it to themselves; till John
Bull himself found his daughters buzzing over it with very pale faces
(as young ladies well might who had no wish to follow the fate of
the damsels of Antwerp), and condescending to run his eye through it,
discovered, what all the rest of Europe had known for months past, that
he was in a very great scrape.
Well it was for England, then, that her Tudor sovereigns had compelled
every man (though they kept up no standing army) to be a trained
soldier. Well it was that Elizabeth, even in those dangerous days of
intrigue and rebellion, had trusted her people enough, not only to leave
them their weapons, but (what we, forsooth, in these more “free” and
“liberal” days dare not do) to teach them how to use them. Well it
was, that by careful legislation for the comfort and employment of “the
masses” (term then, thank God, unknown), she had both won their hearts,
and kept their bodies in fighting order. Well it was that, acting as
fully as Napoleon did on “la carriere ouverte aux talens,” she had
raised to the highest posts in her councils, her army, and her navy, men
of business, who had not been ashamed to buy and sell as merchants and
adventurers. Well for England, in a word, that Elizabeth had pursued
for thirty years a very different course from that which we have been
pursuing for the last thirty, with one exception, namely, the leaving as
much as possible to private enterprise.
There we have copied her: would to Heaven that we had in some other
matters! It is the fashion now to call her a despot: but unless every
monarch is to be branded with that epithet whose power is not as
circumscribed as Queen Victoria's is now, we ought rather to call her
the most popular sovereign, obeyed of their own free will by the freest
subjects which England has ever seen; confess the Armada fight to have
been as great a moral triumph as it was a political one; and (now that
our late boasting is a little silenced by Crimean disasters) inquire
whether we have not something to learn from those old Tudor times, as
to how to choose officials, how to train a people, and how to defend a
country.
To return to the thread of my story.
January, 1587-8, had well-nigh run through, before Sir Richard Grenville
made his appearance on the streets of Bideford. He had been appointed in
November one of the council of war for providing for the safety of the
nation, and the West Country had seen nothing of him since. But one
morning, just before Christmas, his stately figure darkened the old
bay-window at Burrough, and Amyas rushed out to meet him, and bring him
in, and ask what news from Court.
“All good news, dear lad, and dearer madam. The queen shows the spirit
of a very Boadicea or Semiramis; ay, a very Scythian Tomyris, and if she
had the Spaniard before her now, would verily, for aught I know, feast
him as the Scythian queen did Cyrus, with 'Satia te sanguine, quod
sitisti.'”
“I trust her most merciful spirit is not so changed already,” said Mrs.
Leigh.
“Well, if she would not do it, I would, and ask pardon afterwards, as
Raleigh did about the rascals at Smerwick, whom Amyas knows of. Mrs.
Leigh, these are times in which mercy is cruelty. Not England alone,
but the world, the Bible, the Gospel itself, is at stake; and we must do
terrible things, lest we suffer more terrible ones.”
“God will take care of world and Bible better than any cruelty of ours,
dear Sir Richard.”
“Nay, but, Mrs. Leigh, we must help Him to take care of them! If those
Smerwick Spaniards had not been--”
“The Spaniard would not have been exasperated into invading us.”
“And we should not have had this chance of crushing him once and for
all; but the quarrel is of older standing, madam, eh, Amyas? Amyas, has
Raleigh written to you of late?”
“Not a word, and I wonder why.”
“Well; no wonder at that, if you knew how he has been laboring. The
wonder is, whence he got the knowledge wherewith to labor; for he never
saw sea-work to my remembrance.”
“Never saw a shot fired by sea, except ours at Smerwick, and that
brush with the Spaniards in 1579, when he sailed for Virginia with Sir
Humphrey; and he was a mere crack then.”
“So you consider him as your pupil, eh? But he learnt enough in the
Netherland wars, and in Ireland too, if not of the strength of ships,
yet still of the weakness of land forces; and would you believe it, the
man has twisted the whole council round his finger, and made them give
up the land defences to the naval ones.”
“Quite right he, and wooden walls against stone ones for ever! But as
for twisting, he would persuade Satan, if he got him alone for half an
hour.”
“I wish he would sail for Spain then, just now, and try the powers of
his tongue,” said Mrs. Leigh.
“But are we to have the honor, really?”
“We are, lad. There were many in the council who were for disputing the
landing on shore, and said--which I do not deny--that the 'prentice
boys of London could face the bluest blood in Spain. But Raleigh argued
(following my Lord Burleigh in that) that we differed from the Low
Countries, and all other lands, in that we had not a castle or town
throughout, which would stand a ten days' siege, and that our ramparts,
as he well said, were, after all, only a body of men. So, he argued, as
long as the enemy has power to land where he will, prevention, rather
than cure, is our only hope; and that belongs to the office, not of an
army, but of a fleet. So the fleet was agreed on, and a fleet we shall
have.”
“Then here is his health, the health of a true friend to all bold
mariners, and myself in particular! But where is he now?”
“Coming here to-morrow, as I hope--for he left London with me, and so
down by us into Cornwall, to drill the train-bands, as he is bound
to do, being Seneschal of the Duchies and Lieutenant-General of the
county.”
“Besides Lord Warden of the Stanneries! How the man thrives!” said Mrs.
Leigh.
“How the man deserves to thrive!” said Amyas; “but what are we to do?”
“That is the rub. I would fain stay and fight the Spaniards.”
“So would I; and will.”
“But he has other plans in his head for us.”
“We can make our own plans without his help.”
“Heyday, Amyas! How long? When did he ask you to do a thing yet and you
refuse him?”
“Not often, certainly; but Spaniards I must fight.”
“Well, so must I, boy: but I have given a sort of promise to him,
nevertheless.”
“Not for me too, I hope?”
“No: he will extract that himself when he comes; you must come and sup
to-morrow, and talk it over.”
“Be talked over, rather. What chestnut does the cat want us monkeys to
pull out of the fire for him now, I wonder?”
“Sir Richard Grenville is hardly accustomed to be called a monkey,” said
Mrs. Leigh.
“I meant no harm; and his worship knows it, none better: but where is
Raleigh going to send us, with a murrain?”
“To Virginia. The settlers must have help: and, as I trust in God, we
shall be back again long before this armament can bestir itself.”
So Raleigh came, saw, and conquered. Mrs. Leigh consented to Amyas's
going (for his twelve-month would be over ere the fleet could start)
upon so peaceful and useful an errand; and the next five months were
spent in continual labor on the part of Amyas and Grenville, till seven
ships were all but ready in Bideford river, the admiral whereof was
Amyas Leigh.
But that fleet was not destined ever to see the shores of the New World:
it had nobler work to do (if Americans will forgive the speech) than
even settling the United States.
It was in the long June evenings, in the year 1588; Mrs. Leigh sat in
the open window, busy at her needle-work; Ayacanora sat opposite to her,
on the seat of the bay, trying diligently to read “The History of the
Nine Worthies,” and stealing a glance every now and then towards the
garden, where Amyas stalked up and down as he had used to do in happier
days gone by. But his brow was contracted now, his eyes fixed on the
ground, as he plodded backwards and forwards, his hands behind his back,
and a huge cigar in his mouth, the wonder of the little boys of Northam,
who peeped in stealthily as they passed the iron-work gates, to see the
back of the famous fire-breathing captain who had sailed round the world
and been in the country of headless men and flying dragons, and then
popped back their heads suddenly, as he turned toward them in his walk.
And Ayacanora looked, and looked, with no less admiration than the
urchins at the gate: but she got no more of an answering look from Amyas
than they did; for his head was full of calculations of tonnage and
stowage, of salt pork and ale-barrels, and the packing of tools and
seeds; for he had promised Raleigh to do his best for the new colony,
and he was doing it with all his might; so Ayacanora looked back again
to her book, and heaved a deep sigh. It was answered by one from Mrs.
Leigh.
“We are a melancholy pair, sweet chuck,” said the fair widow. “What is
my maid sighing about, there?”
“Because I cannot make out the long words,” said Ayacanora, telling a
very white fib.
“Is that all? Come to me, and I will tell you.”
Ayacanora moved over to her, and sat down at her feet.
“H--e, he, r--o, ro, i--c--a--l, heroical,” said Mrs. Leigh.
“But what does that mean?”
“Grand, good, and brave, like--”
Mrs. Leigh was about to have said the name of one who was lost to her
on earth. His fair angelic face hung opposite upon the wall. She paused
unable to pronounce his name; and lifted up her eyes, and gazed on the
portrait, and breathed a prayer between closed lips, and drooped her
head again.
Her pupil caught at the pause, and filled it up for herself--
“Like him?” and she turned her head quickly toward the window.
“Yes, like him, too,” said Mrs. Leigh, with a half-smile at the gesture.
“Now, mind your book. Maidens must not look out of the window in school
hours.”
“Shall I ever be an English girl?” asked Ayacanora.
“You are one now, sweet; your father was an English gentleman.”
Amyas looked in, and saw the two sitting together.
“You seem quite merry there,” said he.
“Come in, then, and be merry with us.”
He entered, and sat down; while Ayacanora fixed her eyes most
steadfastly on her book.
“Well, how goes on the reading?” said he; and then, without waiting for
an answer--“We shall be ready to clear out this day week, mother, I do
believe; that is, if the hatchets are made in time to pack them.”
“I hope they will be better than the last,” said Mrs. Leigh. “It seems
to me a shameful sin to palm off on poor ignorant savages goods which we
should consider worthless for ourselves.”
“Well, it's not over fair: but still, they are a sight better than they
ever had before. An old hoop is better than a deer's bone, as Ayacanora
knows,--eh?”
“I don't know anything about it,” said she, who was always nettled at
the least allusion to her past wild life. “I am an English girl now, and
all that is gone--I forget it.”
“Forget it?” said he, teasing her for want of something better to do.
“Should not you like to sail with us, now, and see the Indians in the
forests once again?”
“Sail with you?” and she looked up eagerly.
“There! I knew it! She would not be four-and-twenty hours ashore, but
she would be off into the woods again, bow in hand, like any runaway
nymph, and we should never see her more.”
“It is false, bad man!” and she burst into violent tears, and hid her
face in Mrs. Leigh's lap.
“Amyas, Amyas, why do you tease the poor fatherless thing?”
“I was only jesting, I'm sure,” said Amyas, like a repentant schoolboy.
“Don't cry now, don't cry, my child, see here,” and he began fumbling in
his pockets; “see what I bought of a chapman in town to-day, for you, my
maid, indeed, I did.”
And out he pulled some smart kerchief or other, which had taken his
sailor's fancy.
“Look at it now, blue, and crimson, and green, like any parrot!” and he
held it out.
She looked round sharply, snatched it out of his hand, and tore it to
shreds.
“I hate it, and I hate you!” and she sprang up and darted out of the
room.
“Oh, boy, boy!” said Mrs. Leigh, “will you kill that poor child? It
matters little for an old heart like mine, which has but one or two
chords left whole, how soon it be broken altogether; but a young heart
is one of God's precious treasures, Amyas, and suffers many a long pang
in the breaking; and woe to them who despise Christ's little ones!”
“Break your heart, mother?”
“Never mind my heart, dear son; yet how can you break it more surely
than by tormenting one whom I love, because she loves you?”
“Tut! play, mother, and maids' tempers. But how can I break your heart?
What have I done? Have I not given up going again to the West Indies for
your sake? Have I not given up going to Virginia, and now again settled
to go after all, just because you commanded? Was it not your will? Have
I not obeyed you, mother, mother? I will stay at home now, if you will.
I would rather rust here on land, I vow I would, than grieve you--” and
he threw himself at his mother's knees.
“Have I asked you not to go to Virginia? No, dear boy, though every
thought of a fresh parting seems to crack some new fibre within me, you
must go! It is your calling. Yes; you were not sent into the world to
amuse me, but to work. I have had pleasure enough of you, my darling,
for many a year, and too much, perhaps; till I shrank from lending you
to the Lord. But He must have you. . . . It is enough for the poor old
widow to know that her boy is what he is, and to forget all her anguish
day by day, for joy that a man is born into the world. But, Amyas,
Amyas, are you so blind as not to see that Ayacanora--”
“Don't talk about her, poor child. Talk about yourself.”
“How long have I been worth talking about? No, Amyas, you must see it;
and if you will not see it now, you will see it one day in some sad and
fearful prodigy; for she is not one to die tamely. She loves you, Amyas,
as a woman only can love.”
“Loves me? Well, of course. I found her, and brought her home; and I
don't deny she may think that she owes me somewhat--though it was no
more than a Christian man's duty. But as for her caring much for me,
mother, you measure every one else's tenderness by your own.”
“Think that she owes you somewhat? Silly boy, this is not gratitude,
but a deeper affection, which may be more heavenly than gratitude, as
it may, too, become a horrible cause of ruin. It rests with you, Amyas,
which of the two it will be.”
“You are in earnest?”
“Have I the heart or the time to jest?”
“No, no, of course not; but, mother, I thought it was not comely for
women to fall in love with men?”
“Not comely, at least, to confess their love to men. But she has never
done that, Amyas; not even by a look or a tone of voice, though I have
watched her for months.”
“To be sure, she is as demure as any cat when I am in the way. I only
wonder how you found it out.”
“Ah,” said she, smiling sadly, “even in the saddest woman's soul there
linger snatches of old music, odors of flowers long dead and turned to
dust--pleasant ghosts, which still keep her mind attuned to that which
may be in others, though in her never more; till she can hear her own
wedding-hymn re-echoed in the tones of every girl who loves, and sees
her own wedding-torch re-lighted in the eyes of every bride.”
“You would not have me marry her?” asked blunt, practical Amyas.
“God knows what I would have--I know not; I see neither your path nor
my own--no, not after weeks and months of prayer. All things beyond are
wrapped in mist; and what will be, I know not, save that whatever else
is wrong, mercy at least is right.”
“I'd sail to-morrow, if I could. As for marrying her, mother--her birth,
mind me--”
“Ah, boy, boy! Are you God, to visit the sins of the parents upon the
children?”
“Not that. I don't mean that; but I mean this, that she is half a
Spaniard, mother; and I cannot!--Her blood may be as blue as King
Philip's own, but it is Spanish still! I cannot bear the thought that my
children should have in their veins one drop of that poison.”
“Amyas! Amyas!” interrupted she, “is this not, too, visiting the
parents' sins on the children?”
“Not a whit; it is common sense,--she must have the taint of their
bloodthirsty humor. She has it--I have seen it in her again and again.
I have told you, have I not? Can I forget the look of her eyes as
she stood over that galleon's captain, with the smoking knife in her
hand.--Ugh! And she is not tamed yet, as you can see, and never will
be:--not that I care, except for her own sake, poor thing!”
“Cruel boy! to impute as a blame to the poor child, not only the errors
of her training, but the very madness of her love!”
“Of her love?”
“Of what else, blind buzzard? From the moment that you told me the story
of that captain's death, I knew what was in her heart--and thus it is
that you requite her for having saved your life!”
“Umph! that is one word too much, mother. If you don't want to send me
crazy, don't put the thing on the score of gratitude or duty. As it is,
I can hardly speak civilly to her (God forgive me!) when I recollect
that she belongs to the crew who murdered him”--and he pointed to the
picture, and Mrs. Leigh shuddered as he did so.
“You feel it! You know you feel it, tender-hearted, forgiving angel as
you are; and what do you think I must feel?”
“Oh, my son, my son!” cried she, wringing her hands, “if I be wretch
enough to give place to the devil for a moment, does that give you a
right to entertain and cherish him thus day by day?”
“I should cherish him with a vengeance, if I brought up a crew of
children who could boast of a pedigree of idolaters and tyrants, hunters
of Indians, and torturers of women! How pleasant to hear her telling
Master Jack, 'Your illustrious grand-uncle the pope's legate, was
the man who burned Rose Salterne at Cartagena;' or Miss Grace, 'Your
great-grandfather of sixteen quarterings, the Marquis of this, son of
the Grand-equerry that, and husband of the Princess t'other, used to
feed his bloodhounds, when beef was scarce, with Indians' babies!' Eh,
mother? These things are true, and if you can forget them, I cannot. Is
it not enough to have made me forego for awhile my purpose, my business,
the one thing I live for, and that is, hunting down the Spaniards as I
would adders or foxes, but you must ask me over and above to take one to
my bosom?”
“Oh, my son, my son! I have not asked you to do that; I have only
commanded you, in God's name, to be merciful, if you wish to obtain
mercy. Oh, if you will not pity this poor maiden, pity yourself; for God
knows you stand in more need of it than she does!”
Amyas was silent for a minute or two; and then,--
“If it were not for you, mother, would God that the Armada would come!”
“What, and ruin England?”
“No! Curse them! Not a foot will they ever set on English soil, such a
welcome would we give them. If I were but in the midst of that fleet,
fighting like a man--to forget it all, with a galleon on board of me to
larboard, and another to starboard--and then to put a linstock in the
magazine, and go aloft in good company--I don't care how soon it comes,
mother, if it were not for you.”
“If I am in your way, Amyas, do not fear that I shall trouble you long.”
“Oh, mother, mother, do not talk in that way! I am half-mad, I think,
already, and don't know what I say. Yes, I am mad; mad at heart, though
not at head. There's a fire burning me up, night and day, and nothing
but Spanish blood will put it out.”
“Or the grace of God, my poor wilful child! Who comes to the door?--so
quickly, too?”
There was a loud hurried knocking, and in another minute a serving-man
hurried in with a letter.
“This to Captain Amyas Leigh with haste, haste!”
It was Sir Richard's hand. Amyas tore it open; and “a loud laugh laughed
he.”
“The Armada is coming! My wish has come true, mother!”
“God help us, it has! Show me the letter.”
It was a hurried scrawl.
“DR. GODSON,--Walsingham sends word that the Ada. sailed from Lisbon to
the Groyne the 18. of May. We know no more, but have commandment to stay
the ships. Come down, dear lad, and give us counsel; and may the Lord
help His Church in this great strait.
“Your loving godfather,
“R. G.”
“Forgive me, mother, mother, once for all!” cried Amyas, throwing his
arms round her neck.
“I have nothing to forgive, my son, my son! And shall I lose thee,
also?”
“If I be killed, you will have two martyrs of your blood, mother!--”
Mrs. Leigh bowed her head, and was silent. Amyas caught up his hat and
sword, and darted forth toward Bideford.
Amyas literally danced into Sir Richard's hall, where he stood talking
earnestly with various merchants and captains.
“Gloria, gloria! gentles all! The devil is broke loose at last; and now
we know where to have him on the hip!”
“Why so merry, Captain Leigh, when all else are sad?” said a gentle
voice by his side.
“Because I have been sad a long time, while all else were merry, dear
lady. Is the hawk doleful when his hood is pulled off, and he sees the
heron flapping right ahead of him?”
“You seem to forget the danger and the woe of us weak women, sir?”
“I don't forget the danger and the woe of one weak woman, madam, and she
the daughter of a man who once stood in this room,” said Amyas, suddenly
collecting himself, in a low stern voice. “And I don't forget the danger
and the woe of one who was worth a thousand even of her. I don't forget
anything, madam.”
“Nor forgive either, it seems.”
“It will be time to talk of forgiveness after the offender has repented
and amended; and does the sailing of the Armada look like that?”
“Alas, no! God help us!”
“He will help us, madam,” said Amyas.
“Admiral Leigh,” said Sir Richard, “we need you now, if ever. Here are
the queen's orders to furnish as many ships as we can; though from these
gentlemen's spirit, I should say the orders were well-nigh needless.”
“Not a doubt, sir; for my part, I will fit my ship at my own charges,
and fight her too, as long as I have a leg or an arm left.”
“Or a tongue to say, never surrender, I'll warrant!” said an old
merchant. “You put life into us old fellows, Admiral Leigh: but it
will be a heavy matter for those poor fellows in Virginia, and for my
daughter too, Madam Dare, with her young babe, as I hear, just born.”
“And a very heavy matter,” said some one else, “for those who have
ventured their money in these cargoes, which must lie idle, you see, now
for a year maybe--and then all the cost of unlading again--”
“My good sir,” said Grenville, “what have private interests to do
with this day? Let us thank God if He only please to leave us the bare
fee-simple of this English soil, the honor of our wives and daughters,
and bodies safe from rack and fagot, to wield the swords of freemen in
defence of a free land, even though every town and homestead in England
were wasted with fire, and we left to rebuild over again all which our
ancestors have wrought for us in now six hundred years.”
“Right, sir!” said Amyas. “For my part, let my Virginian goods rot
on the quay, if the worst comes to the worst. I begin unloading the
Vengeance to-morrow; and to sea as soon as I can fill up my crew to a
good fighting number.”
And so the talk ran on; and ere two days were past, most of the
neighboring gentlemen, summoned by Sir Richard, had come in, and great
was the bidding against each other as to who should do most. Cary and
Brimblecombe, with thirty tall Clovelly men, came across the bay, and
without even asking leave of Amyas, took up their berths as a matter of
course on board the Vengeance. In the meanwhile, the matter was taken
up by families. The Fortescues (a numberless clan) offered to furnish
a ship; the Chichesters another, the Stukelys a third; while the
merchantmen were not backward. The Bucks, the Stranges, the Heards,
joyfully unloaded their Virginian goods, and replaced them with powder
and shot; and in a week's time the whole seven were ready once more for
sea, and dropped down into Appledore pool, with Amyas as their admiral
for the time being (for Sir Richard had gone by land to Plymouth to join
the deliberations there), and waited for the first favorable wind to
start for the rendezvous in the Sound.
At last, upon the twenty-first of June, the clank of the capstans rang
merrily across the flats, and amid prayers and blessings, forth sailed
that gallant squadron over the bar, to play their part in Britain's
Salamis; while Mrs. Leigh stood watching as she stood once before,
beside the churchyard wall: but not alone this time; for Ayacanora stood
by her side, and gazed and gazed, till her eyes seemed ready to burst
from their sockets. At last she turned away with a sob,--
“And he never bade me good-bye, mother!”
“God forgive him! Come home and pray, my child; there is no other rest
on earth than prayer for woman's heart!”
They were calling each other mother and daughter then? Yes. The sacred
fire of sorrow was fast burning out all Ayacanora's fallen savageness;
and, like a Phoenix, the true woman was rising from those ashes, fair,
noble, and all-enduring, as God had made her.