FOR
GOD AND GOLD
BY
JULIAN CORBETT
AUTHOR OF 'THE FALL OF ASGARD'
London
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1900
All rights reserved
_First Edition 1887_
_Reprinted 1900_
FOR GOD AND GOLD
CALLING ON THIS AILING AGE TO ESCHEW THE SINS AND IMITATE
THE VIRTUES OF
MR. JASPER FESTING
SOMETIME FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE IN CAMBRIDGE, AND LATE AN OFFICER
IN HER MAJESTY'S SEA-SERVICE
BY THIS SHOWING FORTH OF
Certain noteworthy passages from his Life in the said University and
elsewhere, and especially his connection with the beginning of
The Puritan Party
Together with a particular relation of his Voyage to
Nombre de Dios
Under that renowned Navigator
THE LATE
SIR FRANCIS DRAKE, KNIGHT
WRITTEN BY HIMSELF
_AND NOW FIRST SET FORTH_
PREFACE
It is not to be denied that the usual practice in ushering into the
world a long-hidden manuscript has been to give some account of its
existence in its former state, and of the manner in which it came to
light. For sufficient reasons that course will not be followed in
the present case.
Should any one in consequence be brought to doubt the genuineness of
these memoirs, it is hoped that it will be sufficient to refer him to
a curious little work entitled _Sir Francis Drake Revived_, which
contains a very sprightly account of that renowned navigator's
so-called Third Voyage to the Indies, being that in which he
attempted Nombre de Dios, and which, as the title-leaf recites, is
'faithfully taken out of the report of Master Christopher Ceely,
Ellis Hixom, and others who were in the same voyage with him, by
Philip Nichols, Preacher; Reviewed also by Sir Francis Drake himself
before his death, and much holpen and enlarged by divers notes with
his own hand here and there inserted, and set forth by Sir Francis
Drake (his nephew), now living, 1626.'
So closely do the present memoirs follow that account that it cannot
reasonably be doubted that Mr. Festing was one of those 'others' who
had a hand in Preacher Nichols's book, although neither he nor Mr.
Waldyve are mentioned as being of the expedition. When we consider
the circumstances under which they sailed, it is only natural to
suppose that they made it a condition of their assistance that their
names should be suppressed in the published narrative; and, in view
of this supposition, it is not unworthy to be noted that Nichols
makes no mention of a 'captain of the land-soldiers' or a 'merchant'
as sailing with Drake, although it is known that these officials
formed part of all well-ordered expeditions to the Spanish Main.
Of course some small discrepancies will be found between the two
accounts, but they are unimportant, and seem rather to confirm the
general accuracy of Mr. Festing's memoirs than to cast any suspicion
upon them. For instance, Nichols gives the name of the man who
'spoiled all' in the first attempt on the _recuas_ as Pike, but there
can be no doubt that, by an obvious word-play which would commend
itself to an Elizabethan punster, the name of the infantry weapon was
substituted for that of Culverin out of tenderness for the old
Sergeant's memory.
Such instances might be multiplied indefinitely, but it appears
better to suffer the curious to note and comment upon them for
themselves. Should any such be tempted to pursue the subject
farther, he will find an interesting account of Signor Giampietro
Pugliano in a letter of Sir Philip Sidney's, who describes the
esquire of the Emperor's stables in much the same terms as those
which Sergeant Culverin was in the habit of using.
In fact, Mr. Festing's memoirs receive confirmation from contemporary
sources too numerous to set out here. He mentions indeed only one
event of any historical or biographical importance which has not been
found either related or referred to by other trustworthy writers, and
that is the piratical attack of Drake upon the Antwerp caravel--an
exploit about which all parties concerned no doubt took good care to
keep their own counsel.
These considerations, it is felt, will be enough to carry conviction
to what Mr. Festing would have called 'all honest kindly readers.'
To the merciful dealing of such his memoirs are now therefore
committed without further excuse, defence, or apology.
J. C.
THAMES DITTON,
_October_ 1887.
FOR GOD AND GOLD
CHAPTER I
Erasmus, in his _Praise of Folly_, has uttered a sharp note against
those scribbling fops who think to eternise their memory by setting
up for authors, and especially those who spoil paper in blotting it
with mere trifles and impertinences. Yet have I, that was none
before, resolved to turn author, and set down certain passages in my
life that I have thought not unworthy to be remembered.
Many who share my respect for him who is rightly called the honour of
learning of all our time, forgetting therein, as it must be said, all
tenderness for me, have marvelled openly that I listen not to his
wisdom, but will still be spending paper, time, and candles upon such
trifles and impertinences as he condemns. It were better, say they,
for a scholar to take in hand some weighty matter of religion, or
philosophy, or civil government.
But stay, good friends, till I bid you show me how it were better.
Such treatises are ordnance of power; and are we sure that of late
years scholars have not been forging too many weapons for dunces to
arm themselves withal in these wordy wars that now be? A harquebuss
is a dangerous toy in unskilled hands, and so I know may be a
discourse of religion, or philosophy, or civil government to
unlearned controversialists, of whom, God knows, there is a mighty
company in this present time.
So, I pray you, consider whether Erasmus has not here a little
dishonoured his scholarship and sounded his note false. Should he
not rather have placed amidst all other folly that he praises these
very trifles and impertinences also with which a scholar may seek to
comfort his solitude?
I am the more moved to the part I have chosen because it is not clear
that all I have to tell shall be found wholly trifling and
impertinent. Indeed I think it may contain something noteworthy, not
in respect of myself, or even of that noble gentleman whose story
this is as much as mine, but rather in respect of that very mirror
and pattern of manhood who was my good friend in those days, though
now with God, and whom of all I ever knew or heard of I honour as in
courage unsurpassed, in counsel unequalled, and in constancy passing
all I ever deserved.
So much by way of preface or apology; and now, with a good wish on
all honest, kindly readers, let me to my tale.
As with many others, my life, it may be said, began with my father's
death. Till then I had been kept in so great subjection that, save
in my books, I had hardly lived. For he was an austere, grave man of
the Reformation party, and one whom the fires of Mary's reign had
hardened against all Popery, so that towards the end of his life he
became what is now called a Puritan, ay, and that of a strict sort
too.
Outwardly to his great friends in the county he was still good
company. For, not to speak more, because of the honour I bear him,
he was a worldly man, and not one to use a shoe-horn to drag
ill-fitting opinions on to men of quality, nor in any way to seek a
martyr's crown. His chiding and severity were kept for me and his
servants and tenants, who were all hard-pressed, though, in truth,
not beyond what justice would warrant were mercy laid aside.
It was a hard case for me, because of my mother I had not even a
memory. The same hour that I was born she died, leaving my father
alone in the world save for me. It was then that he most changed,
they told me, but in no respect showed his grief so much as in
misliking me.
Yet I think I loved him, for all his chiding and sharpness. Indeed I
had so little else to love. At least I know that I was sobbing
bitterly when my old nurse came to tell me that his short sickness
had come suddenly to an end: for he had but a little time past been
seized with a quartan ague, which carried off so many that same
glorious year that our great Queen came to her throne.
It was a cold, gray afternoon in January. I was sitting, hungry and
forgotten, in my favourite nook in the dim old library. It was an
ancient, low room, which my father had left standing when he had
rebuilt the rest of the place in the new style soon after he had
purchased it. It had been a house of Austin Canons which fell to the
lot of some spendthrift courtier in King Henry's time, which
gentleman, getting past his depth in my father's books with over much
borrowing, was at last driven to release the place to him. So it was
that the old monastery became our dwelling, but this, the Canons'
refectory, was all that was left of the former buildings.
At one end there was a deep recess, where I could sit and see the
dreary darkness settling down on the distant Medway, and the Upchurch
Marshes, and the Saltings. It was but a sad prospect at any time in
winter, and made me sad, though I would never sit elsewhere with my
books. I must have loved it because my father never came to chide me
there, and because on that cold stone sill I could sit and sob
undisturbed over the sorrows of men long dead, as I now sat sobbing
over my own, when Cicely came hurriedly to me.
'The Lord has taken him, Master Jasper,' she cried, as well as her
sobs would allow. 'The Lord has taken him, before I could call you
to see how sweet an ending he made. God-a-mercy on him, for he was a
just and upright gentleman, and one that dallied not with mercy, and
died a good Reformation man. Ay, that he did, and would see never a
priest of them all, with their hocus-pocus and Jack-in-the-box, and
their square caps and their Latins. When the end was coming he cried
out, "God-a-mercy on me and all usurers," once or twice he did, for
the usurers seemed to trouble him. So I opened the windows, and bade
him not trouble himself with the rogues at such a time, but get on
sweetly with his dying. That was a comfort to him, I know, for he
grew quiet then, and passed away with but one more cry for mercy on
them. May the rogues be better for a good man's prayers, that he
shall pray no more! For 'tis all passed, 'tis all passed; and you
are Squire of Longdene now, Master Jasper; and maybe your worship
would like to see how your father lies.'
I dried my tears then, for I had been dreading the summons to see him
die, and felt glad that I was spared the sight. I was able to follow
Cicely into the great chamber where he lay, and look bravely for the
last time on the wise, hard face.
It was when I came out that I felt indeed my life had begun. For
there stood old Miles, our steward, who had married my nurse, bowing
respectfully.
'A wise man has gone this day, sir,' he said, 'and a godly and a
rich. May the Lord in His mercy give your worship strength to bear
his loss and walk in his footsteps.'
It lifted me up strangely to hear him speak thus; for I was but
fourteen years old, and had never been called 'your worship' before,
except sometimes on Saturdays by the Medway fisher lads, who knew I
had groats in my wallet then. To hear Miles thus call me was a thing
I could hardly understand. He who had barely a word for me, except
to scold when he caught me bird-nesting in the orchard, or swear
after me in breathless chase when I flew my hawk at his pigeons, as
happened more than once when Harry came to see me and my father was
away.
It is time I should tell of Harry, my friend and rival, my almost
brother; for his life was, and, I thank God for His mercy, still is,
in spite of all the wrong I did, so bound up in mine, that I cannot
tell my tale without unfolding his.
He was the only son of Sir Fulke Waldyve, a gentleman of good estate
and ancient family near Rochester, in Kent, and a good neighbour of
ours. Ever since my father had come to live at Longdene, Sir Fulke
and he had been fast friends. Not that they had much to make them
so. For Sir Fulke was an old soldier and courtier of King Henry's
day, and had named his only son after him as the pattern of manhood.
From the like cause he swore roundly rasping Tudor oaths at all that
displeased him, ay, and much that he loved too, from mere habit, but
above all at Puritans and those who thought Reformation should go
further than his idol King Henry had carried it. In all ways the
knight was a man of the old time, while my father was held one of the
new men, whom many thought to be ruining the country. He had been a
wool merchant in London, and had made much money at trading and by
other ways that merchants use.
Even I used to wonder to see them so friendly, and used to watch them
by the hour together through a hole I knew of in the yew hedge, as
they sat drinking in our orchard after dinner in the summer-time.
Sir Fulke was so round and red, with his curly beard and his sunburnt
face and his merry blue eyes, and my father was so pale and spare and
grave. I wondered how men could be so little alike, and wondered how
it would have been with me if that rough old knight had been my
father instead of the courtly merchant by his side.
'By this light,' I have heard Sir Fulke burst out in the midst of
their talk, 'I marvel every day what a God's name makes me love you,
Nick. Your sour face should be as much a rebel in my heart as your
damned French claret is in my stomach. Were it not that you are so
good a tippler, I would say that at heart you were no better than a
pestilent, pragmatical rogue of a Calvinist.'
'Nay, Fulke,' my father would say quickly in his courtly way, being,
as it seemed, in no way offended that the old knight should speak to
him so roughly, for they always said my father, like other merchants
who have thriven, was slow to take offence with men of ancient
lineage and good estate; 'what matter that our outward seeming is
different? That is only because our lots were cast differently. Not
what we are, but what we love, is the talk of friends.'
'Ay, by God's power,' Sir Fulke would cry, 'you have hit it now most
nicely, Nick. You love a long fleece, and so do I. You love a fair
stretch of meadowland, and so do I. You love a well-grown tree, and
so do I; ay, and, you rogue, you love a full money-bag, and so, by
this light, do I. Mass, but I run myself out of breath with our
likings, and sack must run me back again.'
'Indeed,' my father would answer, 'were it only our delights that we
share, I think it would be bond enough, without a common sorrow to
help it.'
'Ay, ay, Nick; that is it,' the old knight would murmur, sad in a
moment, for Harry's mother, too, had died in childbed. 'But speak
not of that. God rest her sweet soul! What is there divided that
she could not bring together?'
And so they would fall into silence awhile, till Sir Fulke's eye was
dry again, and his thoughts had wandered away from the beautiful
woman whom, late in life, he had loved and married and lost, to some
new plan he had for mending his estate upon which he wanted his
friend's counsel.
It is little to be wondered at, then, that a great friendship grew up
also between Harry and me. We were little more alike, I think, than
our fathers. For on Harry descended all the sunny beauty of his
mother. Indeed, afterwards, when as a page at Court he personated
the Princess Cleopatra in a masque before the Queen's grace, an old
lord who was in presence swore it must be the gentle Lady Waldyve
alive again. He was lithe and active too, and of quick and nimble
wit, and as long as I can remember could always give the fisher lads
more than he took, either with fist or tongue. But more than all
this, it was his gentle, loving spirit that won and kept my love in
spite of all our boyish quarrels, ay, and of a greater thing than
that. When I think of his noble nature, which never allowed him to
turn a span's breadth from the path of honour, the lofty patience
wherewith he bore my shortcomings, the tender sympathy I won from him
in all my troubles, I can still kneel down and thank God that gave me
such a friend to carry a light before me in the way a gentleman
should walk.
So what wonder then that I loved him as I loved no one else--save
one, of whom I shall forbear yet to speak, until my tale compels me.
Then I must, seeing it was surely God's will that tried me so sore.
Had Harry been other than he was, at the time at least of which I now
speak, I must yet have loved him, for it was my father's will that I
should.
'Jasper,' he would say to me sometimes when I had been reading at
home, 'close your book and ride over to Ashtead to bid young Waldyve
go a-hawking with you to-morrow. You must see more of him. For
know, I would have you no merchant, or parson, or plain scholar, but
a gentleman. You will have money, and he shall teach you how to
spend it like a gentleman. Make him your friend, and be you his, or
you shall smart for it.'
So away I would go blithely enough; for those days with Harry were
the only happy ones I knew, though it must be said they often ended
sadly with a rebuke and even chastisement from old Miles, till one
day my father, seeing him, told him he would not have gainsaid any
prank I played in company with Sir Fulke's son.
This I told Harry next day he came, thinking to strangely delight
him; but instead he looked grave, and swore one of his father's oaths
that he would never fly hawk at Miles's pigeons again.
Such was my friend Harry Waldyve when, in the first year of our most
glorious Queen's reign, whom God bless with fullest measure, my
father died, and I began my life.