On the morrow, as I walked in the orchard after dinner with Frank
Drake and Harry, for the rest were gone, I took occasion to inquire
what they thought of piracy; for our adventure, and especially my own
part in it, weighed no less heavily on my mind for my night's rest.
'That was a shrewd thrust of yours, Mr. Festing,' said Drake, as our
talk turned, naturally enough, on our adventure. 'But for you we
might have had ugly work. I give you good thanks for it, and all the
honour; ay, and if I had my way you should have the lion's share of
the booty too.'
'Have my thanks, Mr. Drake,' said I, 'for your good words. Yet think
me not churlish if I say they might be better bestowed. As for the
thrust, it was none, for the Don spitted himself; as for the honour,
let us talk of that when there is any in such work; and as for the
booty, I will have none of it.'
'Your reasons, Mr. Festing, your reasons?' said Drake good-humouredly.
'For the honour,' answered I, 'it is a thing which I hold pirates
have little part in; for the booty, I care not to share with
water-thieves.'
He turned sharp on me then and stopped in his walk with a flush in
his face, looking hard at me with that strange, honest, searching
look of his. I was ready to bite my tongue out; for I saw in a
moment that my hot words had seared the unsullied spirit of a man
whom nothing would bend to an act which he thought base, a man in all
ways nobler than myself. God knows, I thought him wrong, and thought
he led Harry wrong, but now I would have given half I had to have
chosen kindlier words to say my say.
'You use hard words, and wrong ones too, Mr. Festing, saving your
scholarship,' said Drake at last, proud as a Spaniard. 'I am no
water-thief or pirate either. I shall tell you what a pirate is, not
to speak more of water-thieves, which is a hard word that breaks no
more bones than another. By the most ancient customs of the sea,
sir, whereof be it your excuse that you are ignorant, a pirate is one
who, without license from his prince or his prince's officers, in
time of peace or truce doth spoil or rob those which have peace or
truce with him.'
'Then how shall you justify yourself,' I asked, too cowardly to yield
to him, 'seeing we have peace with Spain?'
'Nay, but I say,' he answered, 'we have no peace with Spain, or truce
either. Is it peace when they lay embargos on our ships, throw our
mariners into prison, and burn and torture them in their streets? Is
it peace when they shut our trade from their ports, and succour and
defend our deadliest enemies?'
'That was well, perhaps, months ago,' said I, though it wanted all my
courage to answer him, such force was in his eyes and voice, 'but now
truce is made, and prisoners are released, the embargo lifted, and
King Philip's ambassador received at Court.'
'And how call you that truce?' he asked. 'They brand us heretics and
Lutheran dogs, with whom they say openly no faith is to be kept; no
mariner is safe from their rake-hell Inquisition in any port of
Spain; they send a spy, whom they call ambassador, to search out the
weakness and plot with the traitors of the land and practise on our
poor young Queen, that they may bring on us again the curse of Rome,
as they did in Mary's time. Call you that truce? Call it rather
war, and worse than war, for it is dastards' warfare? Philip may cry
truce to Bess, and Bess to Philip, but between the people of Spain
and England there is, nor shall be, neither peace nor truce till one
of us is crushed.'
'Yet if all were as you say,' I persisted, more faintly now, for
there was that in the man which no one could withstand when he was
moved thus, 'if there be neither peace nor truce, you have no license
from the Queen. Nor even her goodwill, since you must know what
urgent orders she has issued against adventurers like yourself.'
'I know well enough,' he answered. 'For some reasons of state she
has done this. Yet wait till you see the orders carried out, wait
till you see such an adventurer punished, before you say I have not
her license. Did you not see how the _Minion_, sailing under her own
royal flag, passed us by when we were at the work; and was it not one
of her Justices in constant communication with the Council who fitted
me out? Is not that license enough?'
'Nay, then you accuse the Queen's grace of bad faith to the Spaniard,
and you are willing to abet her in her deceit.'
'Faith to those that keep faith, say I. To every Spaniard, and not
the least the Spanish ambassador, Don Guzman de Silva, she is a
heretic with whom to break faith is the path to heaven. To such must
a man give fair words, as the poor Queen does, till she grow great
enough to strike them straight on the mouth, as, under God, by our
help she shall. And were all I have said too little excuse for what
we do, I have even a higher and greater license than all; for, as dad
says, and all pious men beside, I have God's own commission to prey
on Antichrist and him who stands his champion, till the filthy breath
of the beast shall cease to poison the earth. The Spaniard goes
about to lead away the people after false gods and idolatry and
superstition. Such men by the Word of God are worthy of death. Here
in my Bible I hold license from the Great King to seek out and spoil
and destroy His enemies. Shall I hold my hand so long as He shall
prosper His servant? How are we to call that piracy and thieving
which God has so clearly commanded?'
Then all at once came back to me Mr. Cartwright's words, and how he
spoke of these rovers as doing the Lord's work and being prospered by
Him. I do not think it was that which overcame me, but rather Frank
Drake's presence. The recalling of my master's words was but an
excuse to myself for yielding.
'Mr. Drake, you have prevailed,' said I. 'I crave your pardon; you
are a better man than I, and a truer servant both to God and the
Queen. Give me your pardon for my words; they were uncourteous and
unjust. Forget that they were spoken, and let my memory of them be
my punishment.'
'Nay, it is you, sir,' said he, holding out his hand, 'it is you that
have prevailed. I took you for a distempered, fastidious scholar,
and now I know you for a true man. I desire your better
acquaintance, Mr. Festing, and nothing better than that we may one
day adventure together. At any rate, I trust that if you have a mind
to it at any time, you will know where to look for a captain.'
'Ah,' said Harry, 'Jasper is more for stay-at-home book voyages than
for a dainty feast of dry haberdine and "poor John" at sea; for I
think,' the foolish lad added, 'he knows every cosmography book that
was ever wrote.'
'Say you so?' cried Drake. 'Then I pray you lay in a victualling of
apples, and we three will aboard the arbour and make a dry voyage
together.'
So we did, and talked over Drake's map till sunset, of half-known
worlds and unfurrowed seas, and all the wonders with which the
learning of the ancients and the fancies of the moderns had peopled
them.
I cannot say that from that moment I became Frank Drake's friend, for
he was ever as slow in making a friendship as he was in parting with
one. Yet before he sailed again I may boast we began to be to one
another what we continued till his death.
For in those days which followed we were always together, seeing that
Harry had almost every day to ride forth with his father to bid
farewell to some neighbour.
I had been much astonished at the learning Drake displayed in his
first talk with me, and marvelled where a mariner could have gathered
so great a store of knowledge. He had gladly assented when I bade
him to Longdene, that we might study together the cosmography books
that were in my library.
Day by day we pored together over their crabbed latinity, which I
expounded for his better understanding, while he, as I could see by
his shrewd questions and ruthless commentation, sucked the old
pedants dry as herrings.
Ah! sweet bulky tomes, how dear is the sight of you to my declining
years, since that renowned navigator deigned to ask wisdom of you!
Well may you stand so proudly in your ranks, mounting guard, as it
were, over yonder table whereon he read in you. Best beloved to me
you are of all my books, yea, though I have around me the choicest
flowers of wit and scholarship, which in these latter years have
blossomed so bounteously under the glorious rays of our most royal
sun.
Yes, you I love best; as much for the memory of my dear friend, which
you enshrine, as for some mighty power that seems to lie still behind
your great leather covers. Who knows how much you told him that
listened to your voice with such a wise discernment? Who knows how
much of fame he owed to what you whispered in his ear, unheard by me?
Ay, and who can even tell how many of these new dainty fruits our sun
would have had power to ripen, if he, untaught by you, had not first
so deeply stirred and tilled our fallow English wit with his heroic
and inspiring deeds?
How large and fair a place those weeks hold in my memory! Had their
sands run out less quickly, how great a sorrow I might have been
spared! For I cannot doubt that had I spent a very little longer
time with Frank Drake, he would have made of me, there and then, a
sailor like himself, and I should never have gone back to Cambridge.
But the hours of our studies were numbered, and the day came at last
when Harry must pass over to France in Drake's bark.
It was a parting of double sadness; for not only was I to lose my two
friends, but one of them, he that I accounted my brother, was going
to a far country, where I feared I should lose him, both body and
soul.
For Harry, like most other young gentlemen in his case, had
determined to pass into Italy--a country of which all our party had a
most wholesome horror, not only as the very home and fount of
papistry, but also because we held it no better than a foul Circean
garden, full of all manner of enticements to pleasure and wantonness.
The proverb, by which the Italians themselves would make of every
Italianate Englishman a fiend incarnate, was ever on our lips. I
knew how hardly a man of Harry's kidney could escape unsullied,
seeing how little love he had for learning, in pursuit of which it
was pretended he should travel to Padua and elsewhere, and which
alone could save a man from the Italian taint.
I perceived with great pain that since his return from Berwick Harry
read nothing but the Morte d'Arthur, and such like wanton books of
chivalry, wherein, as it seemed to me, those were accounted the
noblest knights who slew most men for mere valour's sake, without any
quarrel, and lived the most wanton lives.
I spoke long and earnestly to him on this, praying him rather to
travel in Germany, and countries given up to God's true religion. He
listened patiently, as he always did to my preaching, though I think
he must have laughed in his sleeve, knowing how true and pure his
heart was beside mine. Yet I could not turn him from his purpose,
and had to bid him farewell with a sinking heart, which he tried to
comfort by promising that for my sake, if for none other, he would
come back unchanged.
After Harry's departure Sir Fulke was so lonely that he prayed me
stay with him, for a little space. And this I was glad enough to do,
till letters came to me from Mr. Cartwright, wherein he told me of
the growing heats of the controversies at Cambridge concerning
conformity, and urged me to return to the standard, which thing I did
in the beginning of the year of grace 1565.
It is in no way my desire to overstrain patience by speaking of these
matters, whereof so many have written at so great length, and better
than I; nor do I wish to speak much of my life, save in so far as it
was wrapped in those of my two dear friends who were now beyond the
seas, Frank Drake, on his return from France, having sailed under
Captain Lovell on his disastrous voyage to the Indies.
Suffice it to say that I remained at Trinity, working diligently,
under Mr. Cartwright's guidance, to perfect myself in all manner of
scholarship, that I might render myself well practised in the use of
the most lethal weapons which he could forge for me in regard to the
then present controversies.
Every day they and I grew more heated. Conformity was openly
condemned in Trinity, till at last Mr. Cartwright persuaded the whole
college, save three, to cast off the garb of Antichrist, and appear
in chapel without surplices.
It was a day of great rejoicing in my college, for we, setting far
too high our importance, as is the wont of scholars in places where
they are gathered together, deemed we had accomplished little less
than a second Reformation. Yet all it brought about was so sound a
rating from the Chancellor, in which he was pleased to call us
'bragging, brainless heads,' with other pretty conceits, that many
were glad to disclaim their part in the matter and blame Mr.
Cartwright; so that, fearing the further displeasure of Mr.
Secretary, and urged thereto by his friends, my master left Cambridge
and went abroad, whither I would gladly have followed him, but he
would not have it so.
'It were better,' he said, 'that you should abide here and take your
degrees; and, moreover, I desire to leave behind me in the University
some true and understanding friend, who will keep me informed of all
that passes here.'
Being very glad to take upon myself so honourable an office I did as
he wished, and Mr. Cartwright's encouragement to scholarship being
thus withdrawn, my studies became almost entirely turned to theology,
or rather to that unseemly scramble for scraps of divinity which
passed for it in those days.
I was even appointed for a time to read the divinity lecture, as a
gentleman reader without stipendium, and thus becoming always more
fanatical, and being well known as being in Mr. Cartwright's
confidence, I grew to be a marked man in Trinity, and in due course
was elected fellow, to my great content, though I had no intention of
taking orders, being a violent opponent of conformity.
Those were great days for us in Trinity, for we had, what men love
best, a perfect content in the sense of our own bigness, at least
whenever our ears were not tingling with a rating from my Lord
Burleigh, our chancellor. We went on our ways like prophets, blindly
swelling out our littleness with the vain wind of our own babbling,
till we seemed to ourselves to tower like a giant at the head of
Reformation.
If any had told us then that Frank Drake, or even my Lord of Bedford,
was doing more for the cause with his little finger than all our
heads together, we should have laughed him to scorn. Yet now it is
not clear to me that such a speech would not have had some show of
reason.
In the year 1567 Dr. Beaumont died, to my great sorrow, and we had
set over us in his place Dr. Whitgift, Master of Pembroke Hall and
Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity. He was a man from whom we hoped
much, seeing that to a good disposition towards the Puritan party, a
hatred of vestments, and very sound Calvinistic doctrine, he added a
greater force of scholarship and eloquence than Dr. Beaumont ever
had, and moreover was a better courtier.
Indeed, I think Trinity could have had no better Master in those
days. For although he seemed then to my hot head but lukewarm in the
cause, yet now I can see how high he raised my college during the ten
years of his mastership, which thing he achieved by a nice handling
of his authority between the parties, whereby the turbulent spirits
were pruned to a less rank growth, and the timid digged about and
fostered to the plentiful production of sweet and peaceful fruit.
Such is the man as I see him now. Then it was different, for my hard
zeal was always distasteful to him, and we were but sorry friends.
So little indeed to my taste was the new spirit in the college, that
on his constantly urging me to conform and take orders, I resigned my
fellowship in fear of being deprived of it, as Mr. Cartwright was
afterwards, and retired to Longdene.
I had the full consent of my master for this. He had recently
returned to Cambridge, and found himself the man of greatest weight
in the University, and like to be elected Vice-Chancellor had he been
in priest's orders.
'It will be better in many ways,' said he, when I asked him his
advice, 'that you should return to your estate; your influence will
be more useful there. In Cambridge we have an abundance of
labourers. It is men like yourself that we now require throughout
the country. The cause needs urgently the support of the gentry, who
for the most part are papist or half-reformed. Since Mr. Drake has
got the vicarage of Upchurch you will have a stalwart fellow-worker.
Go then, and do your best till the time is ripe for our great blow.
I do not mean in any way to attack our present detestable and
superstitious manner of church government until I am made Professor
of Divinity, and can speak with all the authority of our great
University. Meanwhile in your private study you can help me in my
labour of grinding the weapons, that they may be sharp and ready in
my hands when the hour is come.'
Though feeling not a little sad at leaving my dear college, perhaps
never to return, I could not but rejoice when I reached home that I
had taken Mr. Cartwright's advice; for I found my good old guardian
most grievously sick.
He seemed very glad to see me, but yet I could fancy his manner was
not so frank as of yore. It pained me not a little, for I could see
by his pinched face that he was near to death's door. Nor could I
understand why he should be so different, till after I had talked
with him for some time, particularly of his spiritual state, we were
interrupted by some one entering the room unbidden.
I started to my feet when I saw at the door a young gentleman whom I
had known at Cambridge. He had been a scholar of King's, and was one
of those who took little trouble to disguise their love of papistry.
He was dressed now in a cassock, and wore a small skull-cap to hide
his tonsure.
We saluted each other very stiffly, while Sir Fulke looked from one
to the other in a frightened way, as though he expected us to fly at
each other's throats.
'Which of us shall remain, Sir Fulke,' said I, 'since there is no
room for both?'
'Both, lad, both,' cried Sir Fulke.
'Nay,' said the Catholic gentleman, 'you must choose between us. If
you would have me do my office let this gentleman depart. I cannot
defile the mass by celebrating it in the presence of a heretic.'
He said this in so soft and polished a manner that, though I felt my
face flush, I would not let him have the advantage, but replied with
my utmost politeness, speaking as though I had not heard him.
'It were better I should go, Sir Fulke,' I said; 'I cannot stay and
stand by while a servant of Antichrist sullies your soul with
superstition and idolatry even as it is knocking for entry at God's
door.'
It was the priest's turn to look angry then, but he only bowed to me
again and was silent.
'Tush, lads,' broke in Sir Fulke, 'there is no need for squabbling
over me. What matter, Jasper, if I have a bit of a mass in memory of
the old days? I have been an arrant sinner too, and would ease
myself of a load of sin with just a piece of confession. I have
robbed the Church grievously, curse that mad knave Drake that led me
to it, and been a great swearer, Heaven help me; ay, and you help me
too, Jasper, since you know better prayers against swearing than the
priests. You shall come and pray with me after he has done, lad, and
then God will know it was my wish to make peace with Him and all men
before I died. Come, lad, will you not? I have no son but you to
smooth my pillow, since Harry is beyond the sea. Go now, and come
again. You would not grudge me a bit of a mass like my fathers to
die upon. May be they would be ashamed of me when I went to do
homage with them up there, if I came amongst them unshriven and
unhouselled.'
'Surely, sir,' I said, much melted at the old knight's words, 'you
would depart in surer hope of Paradise if you please God in your
death rather than your ancestors.'
'That is right, lad,' said the dying man, 'and so I will. You shall
come and help me. But there would be no joy in Paradise if my
ancestors and the old gentry turned their backs upon me, and I had to
go with the new men. Save your father, there never was one of them I
could abide; and Mr. Carter says Nick will not be there.'
I looked at Mr. Carter, as Sir Fulke called him, though I knew it was
not his name. He bowed again to me politely, and I repressed the
angry burst that I had ready for him, being unwilling to cause Sir
Fulke any further pain.
'Sir Fulke,' said I, 'it was your good will to let my father be
buried as he would. I have not forgotten that, and for your sake
will this day forget my plain duty both to God and myself.'
With that I left the room, and waited below in the hall till I was
called up again. I found Sir Fulke at the mercy of God, and
senseless. The Catholic gentleman was gone. So I knelt by the old
knight's bed, and prayed long and earnestly to God that his opinions
might be forgiven him, seeing they sprang of ignorance rather than
perversity, though I had then, it must be said, little hope my
prayers would be heard; and even as I prayed my guardian passed
peacefully away.