It was early in the year of grace 1572, that Frank Drake came back
from the second voyage which he made to discover the Spanish Indies.
He came to see us soon after he landed, in most excellent heart. For
not only was he the bearer of a modest return for our venture with
him, but he also brought news that his discovery of those seas was
now complete, and as happy in its omens as it was complete.
'Heark ye, my lads,' said he, setting a hand on our knees as he sat
between us, and speaking in a low excited voice. 'I have found the
treasure-house of the world! I have found the well whence the
Spaniards draw the life-blood that gives them all their strength to
trouble Europe and champion Antichrist! Closer, my lads, while I
whisper its name. Nombre de Dios it is called, "the Name of God,"
and in the name of God I will so rifle it and breed such terror in
the place that thenceforth they shall rather call it Nombre de
Diablo.'
'But how, Frank, bow?' we cried.
'Why, easily enough,' he answered. 'They sleep there in fatness and
security, they grow soft and womanish with riches; and who can
wonder? Since thither flow all the wealth of Peru, the gold of El
Dorado, and the pearls of the Southern sea. Yet they protect it not,
but lie secure in ease and wantonness, because they deem the land is
theirs, since the vile Italian has given it to them; they deem it is
theirs, because they think no man can sail thither save with their
pilots: but we can and will by God's help. I know a safe place for
rendezvous hard by, whence we may strike, as we will, swift and
sudden before they are 'ware of us. Then we will show them whether
the world is the Pope's to part and grant. They shall see the New
World is for those that can occupy with a strong arm. Hey! 'twill be
merry to think how the fat lazy hens will cluck and flutter when the
hawk has struck and we are rolling home again, with golden wedges for
ballast, and pearls to fill the cracks.'
'But, Frank,' said I, almost breathless at his gigantic project, 'how
will you get money to furnish ships for so great a venture?'
'And how many ships do you think I want?' exclaimed Drake. 'Do you
think I am going to sail away with a whole fleet, like Jack Hawkins,
with the Spanish Ambassador looking on and sending word before me?
No, my lads, I know better than that now. I know the thing can be
done, and I know how to do it. Just two ships is all I take.'
'What!' cried Harry, 'attack the Indies, attack the choicest
possession of the greatest empire in the world with two ships? You
must be mad.'
'Maybe, maybe, my lad,' laughed Drake. 'We shall see who is mad and
who is sane before long; but now I mean to sail with just two ships
and a pinnace or two for shore work. I have already bespoke in
Plymouth the _Pasha_, of seventy tons, for my admiral, and then I
will take again my little _Swan_, of twenty-five, for my
vice-admiral. She is still staunch, and now knows her way to the
Indies better than any ship that floats in English waters. Brother
Jack is to be captain in her.'
'But, for God's sake, Frank,' said I, 'be not so hastily resolved.
Think again what you do. It is not hens you fly at. It is a mighty
eagle with claws of iron, whose wings stretch over the four quarters
of the world.'
'You may say that too,' answered he. 'Yet remember that though the
eagle lays her eggs in Jupiter's lap, still she escapes not requital
for her wrong done to the emmet. The Spaniard has foully wronged me,
and foully wronged one beside whom I am indeed but an emmet. It is
the Lord's work to do what I say. It can be done, and I am going to
do it.'
This he said quietly, without boasting, and with so determined an air
of cheerful resolution that I knew no words of ours would turn him
from his audacious purpose. So we listened, wondering more and more
at the fire of his dauntless spirit, while he unfolded to us every
detail of his plan.
'Would God I could sail with you!' burst out Harry at last, with
kindling eyes.
'Why not, lad, why not?' cried Frank, smiting him on the back in his
cheery sea fashion. 'Such lads as you I want. Not a man over thirty
years old will I have. It is youth and fire we need. The oldest are
too wary, and will not believe I know best. Say now, will you sail
and take command of the land-soldiers?'
'Would God I could!' answered Harry mournfully. 'It will be a tale
to be told beside the story of Æneas, and sung with the song of the
Argonauts. But tempt me not, Frank; I am married now, and must stay
to watch over my sweet Nan. My fighting days are over, save at
England's need.'
'Well, as you will,' said Drake, very disappointed. 'But you miss a
glorious venture; and you will not go either, Jasper?'
'Gladly I would,' said I, 'but each must to the work his hand finds
to do, and mine, as you know, is here. My money, as far as my
capacity goes, shall be with you, though for profit I would rather
have seen it risked in a plain voyage to Guinea after negroes. Yet,
since this is the Lord's work which you are on, you shall have what
help my purse can yield. But for my body, the Lord has need of that
here.'
This was indeed so, as I thought, though had it been otherwise I
doubt if then I should have had stomach for Frank's wild enterprise.
Mr. Cartwright had already sounded his note against prelatical Church
government and all its brood of evils, and had been deprived both of
his professorship and his fellowship. Since that time he had been
busy with his _Admonition to Parliament_. That clarion-blast, which
was to wake a war in England which seems each day to grow in
fierceness, was about to be blown, and seeing how much he looked to
me to help him in his great work, and how stormy a controversy he
foresaw it would raise, I felt I should not leave his side.
Such was the reason I gave to myself, yet I think my resolve was
dictated rather by distaste for the danger of so rash an expedition,
and by the closer ties which bound me to England.
Would God I had had strength to give Frank another answer! What sin
and misery I might then have been spared, and of how much sorrow
brought on those I loved best should I have been guiltless! Yet it
was fated that I should have another tale to tell, so let me hasten
in shame to the end, which now came quickly.
When Frank left us our lives rolled on in the old ruts again, but
deeper than before. Out of his great love for his wife, and his
knightly devotion to her, Harry had made a sacrifice greater than we
and he guessed in refusing Drake's offer; and seeking to forget it in
an unceasing round of work and pleasure, he devoted his time more and
more to his sheep and tenants and estate, and sought more, eagerly
the assemblies of gentlemen where sport was to be had.
As for his wife, she seemed to think now of nothing but good works
amongst the poor and reading theology with me. Hour after hour she
would pore over Genevan Latin, still her Puritanism grew sterner and
sterner. Harry's hunting and bull-baiting and card-playing became
more and more distasteful in her eyes, till at last I think it was
all they could see of him; so that when he came home at nights it was
little return he got for the love he was ready to lavish upon her.
Perhaps he was to blame, though I can never see in his most noble
life anything that is not praiseworthy. Perhaps if he could have
given her a little more and his work a little less, she would have
been readier to forgive the manly pleasures he loved in common with
every other gentleman of spirit. Yet I think not. I doubt the
poison which I, in my self-willed ignorance, administered for a
wholesome physic was too strong and deadly for her high-wrought
nature.
Soon she would bid none but the poor and preachers to Ashtead, where
once she had loved so well to entertain very gallant parties of
gentry from the country round, ay, and from London too. Nor would
she go abroad to other houses, as she used, with Harry, since she had
grown to hate the sports and ungodly conversation and gallantry that
went forward at such times.
Above all, there was one house which she hated. It belonged to a
Popish gentleman, and was well known to me as a place where there was
a great coming and going of strangers, who rode on North Country
cobbles, and often spoke with a strong North Country burr. We had
not yet forgotten the Catholic risings in the North. The Duke of
Norfolk's treasonable practices with Rome for her Majesty's
destruction had been but recently brought to light, and he was yet
lying a convicted traitor in the Tower, but still unexecuted.
Rumours were leaking out or being invented of other great Popish
plots for the subversion of the realm and the making away with the
Queen and her ministers. It was no wonder, then, that Harry's
constant visits to the house of which I speak caused us no little
anxiety, although now I know he went there bent only on pleasure.
It was one of these visits that brought about the end. I had ridden
over to Ashtead one afternoon towards the end of April. The morning
had been showery--a mirror of England's state at that time, as I
thought to myself, a mixture of sunshine and tears.
To my great surprise, instead of finding Mrs. Waldyve bent over some
Latin book as usual, she was sitting miserably crouched upon the
window seat, wild-eyed and weary, as one that grieved sorely and
could not weep. As soon as she heard my step she sprang up with a
strange little laugh, and pressed my hand very hard as she spoke.
'Oh, Jasper,' she said, 'I am so glad you are come. I had need of
you. Let us come to the orchard, where we can talk alone.'
We went out together and seated ourselves side by side, as we had
done many times before, on the bowed limb of an ancient apple-tree
which, as though overcome with years, rested, all gnarled and
twisted, upon the flowery turf. It was one of the first warm days of
spring. The grass was spangled over with primroses, the trees were
laden with flowery frost, the choir of the birds was warbling its
fullest love-notes, and all was bathed in the soft sunshine of the
waning afternoon.
Yet there was nothing for me so beautiful as the woman who sat by my
side, gazing far away over the mellow prospect of field and woodland
and river, or so tuneful as the soft murmur that came in rhythmical
whisper from her heaving breast.
For a time we sat in silence, and while she gathered strength and
calmness to speak, I watched the sunlight playing in her hair and,
wondering, tried to read the thoughts that chased each other across
her wistful face.
'Jasper!' she said at last, turning suddenly on me, 'whatever comes
of it you will not think ill of me? Say you will not.'
I tried to calm and comfort her, and begged her to tell me what her
trouble was; but I was afraid to speak much, for a strange fear of
her seemed to come over me, and I could not think quietly.
'When he was going over there, you know where, Jasper,' she said,
'the voice of the Lord whispered to me that I must stay him. So I
arose and begged him not to go. He patted my cheek, as though I were
a child, and laughing, asked me of what I was afraid. Then I told
him how we feared for his body, lest he should be drawn into some
Popish plot, and, more than that, for his soul, lest he should be
tempted to backsliding and so to utter perdition. And what think you
he said, Jasper? I shudder to speak it. He patted my cheek, smiling
again, and said, "Ah, Nan,' 'tis a pity you are grown such a prim
little Puritan. But fear not; a Waldyve heart is loyal enough, and
as for my soul, why, lass, God--if there is a God that marks these
little coils--must be made of better stuff than to damn my soul for a
frolic with a jolly papist or two." Then I knew what he was. I was
stricken dumb, and he rode away. Jasper!' she went on, seizing my
arm and leaning eagerly towards me, 'he is an atheist! I am married
to an atheist! My son is an atheist's son! Oh, my God, what shall I
do? He will grow up to mock God, like his father. He will learn to
mock at my faith, like Hal. I know it. He will not care for me.
Hal wins all to him. What shall I do? Counsel me, brother, for
God's sake, or my heart will break. I have no friend but you. Thank
God He sent you to me!'
I know not what I said. I could not think of my words, only of her,
as she leaned her lithe young figure on my arm and sobbed and sobbed
again. A devil came into me with the sunshine, and the warbling of
the birds, and the faint scent of the flowers, and at last I dared
not speak for dread of what words the fiend had put on my tongue.
So we continued for a space, till suddenly her sobs ceased and she
sprang up to her feet before me. I rose too, stepping a little back
from her. I dared not go near, for her eyes were glittering, her
cheeks flushed, and all in the reddening sun she was a vision too
fair for my strength.
'Jasper,' she said quietly, but much excited and trembling, and
looking at me very fixedly, 'there is but one way, and the Lord has
shown it me. I must go away from here, from him, and take little
Fulke away, or he and I and all will be lost for ever. Jasper, you
must take us away.'
I started, horror-stricken, to hear from her sweet mouth the very
words which the devil had set on my own lips and which I had striven
so hard to keep back. I knew then I could not resist much longer.
It seemed to me that I must be speaking to a fiend who had taken her
angel shape, and my courage for so hopeless a battle began to fail me.
'Brother,' it said, coming towards me, 'you will not fail me. Save
me and my boy, your own godson, from perdition. Take me to where he
is fostering, and thence whither you will. I care not, so long as I
am away from this great trial.'
Her form was close to me; what seemed her little white hands were
upon me; two wistful brown eyes like hers were looking up in my face
in an agony of pleading. What could I do, what could I do? I had
taken the soft form in my arms before I knew and passionately kissed
the sweet upturned face. God forgive me for it, when His will is! I
was tempted more than I could bear.