THOMAS SWEARS AN OATH
For a while I stood amazed with horror, staring down at the dead face
of my beloved mother. Then I stooped to lift her and saw that she had
been stabbed, and through the breast, stabbed with the sword which I
carried in my hand.
Now I understood. This was the work of that Spanish stranger whom I had
met as he hurried from the place of murder, who, because of the
wickedness of his heart or for some secret reason, had striven to slay
me also when he learned that I was my mother’s son. And I had held this
devil in my power, and that I might meet my May, I had suffered him to
escape my vengeance, who, had I known the truth, would have dealt with
him as the priests of Anahuac deal with the victims of their gods. I
understood and shed tears of pity, rage, and shame. Then I turned and
fled homewards like one mad.
At the doorway I met my father and my brother Geoffrey riding up from
Bungay market, and there was that written on my face which caused them
to ask as with one voice:
“What evil thing has happened?”
Thrice I looked at my father before I could speak, for I feared lest
the blow should kill him. But speak I must at last, though I chose that
it should be to Geoffrey my brother. “Our mother lies murdered yonder
on the Vineyard Hill. A Spanish man has done the deed, Juan de Garcia
by name.” When my father heard these words his face became livid as
though with pain of the heart, his jaw fell and a low moan issued from
his open mouth. Presently he rested his hand upon the pommel of the
saddle, and lifting his ghastly face he said:
“Where is this Spaniard? Have you killed him?”
“No, father. He chanced upon me in Grubswell, and when he learned my
name he would have murdered me. But I played quarter staff with him and
beat him to a pulp, taking his sword.”
“Ay, and then?”
“And then I let him go, knowing nothing of the deed he had already
wrought upon our mother. Afterwards I will tell you all.”
“You let him go, son! You let Juan de Garcia go! Then, Thomas, may the
curse of God rest upon you till you find him and finish that which you
began to-day.”
“Spare to curse me, father, who am accursed by my own conscience. Turn
your horses rather and ride for Yarmouth, for there his ship lies and
thither he has gone with two hours’ start. Perhaps you may still trap
him before he sets sail.”
Without another word my father and brother wheeled their horses round
and departed at full gallop into the gloom of the gathering night.
They rode so fiercely that, their horses being good, they came to the
gates of Yarmouth in little more than an hour and a half, and that is
fast riding. But the bird was flown. They tracked him to the quay and
found that he had shipped a while before in a boat which was in waiting
for him, and passed to his vessel that lay in the Roads at anchor but
with the most of her canvas set. Instantly she sailed, and now was lost
in the night. Then my father caused notice to be given that he would
pay reward of two hundred pieces in gold to any ship that should
capture the Spaniard, and two started on the quest, but they did not
find her that before morning was far on her way across the sea.
So soon as they had galloped away I called together the grooms and
other serving men and told them what had chanced. Then we went with
lanterns, for by now it was dark, and came to the thick brushwood where
lay the body of my mother. I drew near the first, for the men were
afraid, and so indeed was I, though why I should fear her lying dead
who living had loved me tenderly, I do not know. Yet I know this, that
when I came to the spot and saw two eyes glowering at me and heard the
crash of bushes as something broke them, I could almost have fallen
with fear, although I knew well that it was but a fox or wandering
hound haunting the place of death.
Still I went on, calling the others to follow, and the end of it was
that we laid my mother’s body upon a door which had been lifted from
its hinges, and bore her home for the last time. And to me that path is
still a haunted place. It is seventy years and more since my mother
died by the hand of Juan de Garcia her cousin, yet old as I am and
hardened to such sad scenes, I do not love to walk that path alone at
night.
Doubtless it was fancy which plays us strange tricks, still but a year
ago, having gone to set a springe for a woodcock, I chanced to pass by
yonder big oak upon a November eve, and I could have sworn that I saw
it all again. I saw myself a lad, my wounded arm still bound with
Lily’s kerchief, climbing slowly down the hill-side, while behind me,
groaning beneath their burden, were the forms of the four serving men.
I heard the murmur of the river and the wind that seventy years ago
whispered in the reeds. I saw the clouded sky flawed here and there
with blue, and the broken light that gleamed on the white burden
stretched upon the door, and the red stain at its breast. Ay, I heard
myself talk as I went forward with the lantern, bidding the men pass to
the right of some steep and rotten ground, and it was strange to me to
listen to my own voice as it had been in youth. Well, well, it was but
a dream, yet such slaves are we to the fears of fancy, that because of
the dead, I, who am almost of their number, do not love to pass that
path at night.
At length we came home with our burden, and the women took it weeping
and set about their task with it. And now I must not only fight my own
sorrows but must strive to soothe those of my sister Mary, who as I
feared would go mad with grief and horror. At last she sobbed herself
into a torpor, and I went and questioned the men who sat round the fire
in the kitchen, for none sought their beds that night. From them I
learned that an hour or more before I met the Spaniard, a
richly-dressed stranger had been seen walking along the church-path,
and that he had tied his horse among some gorse and brambles on the top
of the hill, where he stood as though in doubt, till my mother came
out, when he descended and followed her. Also I learned that one of the
men at work in the garden, which is not more than three hundred paces
from where the deed was done, heard cries, but had taken no note of
them, thinking forsooth that it was but the play of some lover from
Bungay and his lass chasing each other through the woods, as to this
hour it is their fashion to do. Truly it seemed to me that day as
though this parish of Ditchingham were the very nursery of fools, of
whom I was the first and biggest, and indeed this same thought has
struck me since concerning other matters.
At length the morning came, and with it my father and brother, who
returned from Yarmouth on hired horses, for their own were spent. In
the afternoon also news followed them that the ships which had put to
sea on the track of the Spaniard had been driven back by bad weather,
having seen nothing of him.
Now I told all the story of my dealings with the murderer of my mother,
keeping nothing back, and I must bear my father’s bitter anger because
knowing that my mother was in dread of a Spaniard, I had suffered my
reason to be led astray by my desire to win speech with my love. Nor
did I meet with any comfort from my brother Geoffrey, who was fierce
against me because he learned that I had not pleaded in vain with the
maid whom he desired for himself. But he said nothing of this reason.
Also that no drop might be lacking in my cup, Squire Bozard, who came
with many other neighbours to view the corpse and offer sympathy with
my father in his loss, told him at the same time that he took it ill
that I should woo his daughter against his wish, and that if I
continued in this course it would strain their ancient friendship. Thus
I was hit on every side; by sorrow for my mother whom I had loved
tenderly, by longing for my dear whom I might not see, by self-reproach
because I had let the Spaniard go when I held him fast, and by the
anger of my father and my brother. Indeed those days were so dark and
bitter, for I was at the age when shame and sorrow sting their
sharpest, that I wished that I were dead beside my mother. One comfort
reached me indeed, a message from Lily sent by a servant girl whom she
trusted, giving me her dear love and bidding me to be of good cheer.
At length came the day of burial, and my mother, wrapped in fair white
robes, was laid to her rest in the chancel of the church at
Ditchingham, where my father has long been set beside her, hard by the
brass effigies that mark the burying place of Lily’s forefather, his
wife, and many of their children. This funeral was the saddest of
sights, for the bitterness of my father’s grief broke from him in sobs
and my sister Mary swooned away in my arms. Indeed there were few dry
eyes in all that church, for my mother, notwithstanding her foreign
birth, was much loved because of her gentle ways and the goodness of
her heart. But it came to an end, and the noble Spanish lady and
English wife was left to her long sleep in the ancient church, where
she shall rest on when her tragic story and her very name are forgotten
among men. Indeed this is likely to be soon, for I am the last of the
Wingfields alive in these parts, though my sister Mary has left
descendants of another name to whom my lands and fortune go except for
certain gifts to the poor of Bungay and of Ditchingham.
When it was over I went back home. My father was sitting in the front
room well nigh beside himself with grief, and by him was my brother.
Presently he began to assail me with bitter words because I had let the
murderer go when God gave him into my hand.
“You forget, father,” sneered Geoffrey, “Thomas woos a maid, and it was
more to him to hold her in his arms than to keep his mother’s murderer
safely. But by this it seems he has killed two birds with one stone, he
has suffered the Spanish devil to escape when he knew that our mother
feared the coming of a Spaniard, and he has made enmity between us and
Squire Bozard, our good neighbour, who strangely enough does not favour
his wooing.”
“It is so,” said my father. “Thomas, your mother’s blood is on your
hands.”
I listened and could bear this goading injustice no longer.
“It is false,” I said, “I say it even to my father. The man had killed
my mother before I met him riding back to seek his ship at Yarmouth and
having lost his way; how then is her blood upon my hands? As for my
wooing of Lily Bozard, that is my matter, brother, and not yours,
though perhaps you wish that it was yours and not mine. Why, father,
did you not tell me what you feared of this Spaniard? I heard some
loose talk only and gave little thought to it, my mind being full of
other things. And now I will say something. You called down God’s curse
upon me, father, till such time as I should find this murderer and
finish what I had begun. So be it! Let God’s curse rest upon me till I
do find him. I am young, but I am quick and strong, and so soon as may
be I start for Spain to hunt him there till I shall run him down or
know him to be dead. If you will give me money to help me on my quest,
so be it—if not I go without. I swear before God and by my mother’s
spirit that I will neither rest nor stay till with the very sword that
slew her, I have avenged her blood upon her murderer or know him dead,
and if I suffer myself to be led astray from the purpose of this oath
by aught that is, then may a worse end than hers overtake me, may my
soul be rejected in heaven, and my name be shameful for ever upon the
earth!”
Thus I swore in my rage and anguish, holding up my hand to heaven that
I called upon to witness the oath.
My father looked at me keenly. “If that is your mind, son Thomas, you
shall not lack for money. I would go myself, for blood must be wiped
out with blood, but I am too broken in my health; also I am known in
Spain and the Holy Office would claim me there. Go, and my blessing go
with you. It is right that you should go, for it is through your folly
that our enemy has escaped us.”
“Yes, it is right that he should go,” said Geoffrey.
“You say that because you wish to be rid of me, Geoffrey,” I answered
hotly, “and you would be rid of me because you desire to take my place
at the side of a certain maid. Follow your nature and do as you will,
but if you would outwit an absent man no good shall come to you of it.”
“The girl is to him who can win her,” he said.
“The girl’s heart is won already, Geoffrey. You may buy her from her
father but you can never win her heart, and without a heart she will be
but a poor prize.”
“Peace! now is no time for such talk of love and maids,” said my
father, “and listen. This is the tale of the Spanish murderer and your
mother. I have said nothing of it heretofore, but now it must out. When
I was a lad it happened that I also went to Spain because my father
willed it. I went to a monastery at Seville, but I had no liking for
monks and their ways, and I broke out from the monastery. For a year or
more I made my living as I best might, for I feared to return to
England as a runaway. Still I made a living and not a bad one, now in
this way and now in that, but though I am ashamed to say it, mostly by
gaming, at which I had great luck. One night I met this man Juan de
Garcia—for in his hate he gave you his true name when he would have
stabbed you—at play. Even then he had an evil fame, though he was
scarcely more than a lad, but he was handsome in person, set high in
birth, and of a pleasing manner. It chanced that he won of me at the
dice, and being in a good humour, he took me to visit at the house of
his aunt, his uncle’s widow, a lady of Seville. This aunt had one
child, a daughter, and that daughter was your mother. Now your mother,
Luisa de Garcia, was affianced to her cousin Juan de Garcia, not with
her own will indeed, for the contract had been signed when she was only
eight years old. Still it was binding, more binding indeed than in this
country, being a marriage in all except in fact. But those women who
are thus bound for the most part bear no wife’s love in their hearts,
and so it was with your mother. Indeed she both hated and feared her
cousin Juan, though I think that he loved her more than anything on
earth, and by one pretext and another she contrived to bring him to an
agreement that no marriage should be celebrated till she was full
twenty years of age. But the colder she was to him, the more was he
inflamed with desire to win her and also her possessions, which were
not small, for like all Spaniards he was passionate, and like most
gamesters and men of evil life, much in want of money.
“Now to be brief, from the first moment that your mother and I set eyes
on each other we loved one another, and it was our one desire to meet
as often as might be; and in this we had no great difficulty, for her
mother also feared and hated Juan de Garcia, her nephew by marriage,
and would have seen her daughter clear of him if possible. The end of
it was that I told my love, and a plot was made between us that we
should fly to England. But all this had not escaped the ears of Juan,
who had spies in the household, and was jealous and revengeful as only
a Spaniard can be. First he tried to be rid of me by challenging me to
a duel, but we were parted before we could draw swords. Then he hired
bravos to murder me as I walked the streets at night, but I wore a
chain shirt beneath my doublet and their daggers broke upon it, and in
place of being slain I slew one of them. Twice baffled, de Garcia was
not defeated. Fight and murder had failed, but another and surer means
remained. I know not how, but he had won some clue to the history of my
life, and of how I had broken out from the monastery. It was left to
him, therefore, to denounce me to the Holy Office as a renegade and an
infidel, and this he did one night; it was the night before the day
when we should have taken ship. I was sitting with your mother and her
mother in their house at Seville, when six cowled men entered and
seized me without a word. When I prayed to know their purpose they gave
no other answer than to hold a crucifix before my eyes. Then I knew why
I was taken, and the women ceased clinging to me and fell back sobbing.
Secretly and silently I was hurried away to the dungeons of the Holy
Office, but of all that befell me there I will not stop to tell.
“Twice I was racked, once I was seared with hot irons, thrice I was
flogged with wire whips, and all this while I was fed on food such as
we should scarcely offer to a dog here in England. At length my offence
of having escaped from a monastery and sundry blasphemies, so-called,
being proved against me, I was condemned to death by fire.
“Then at last, when after a long year of torment and of horror, I had
abandoned hope and resigned myself to die, help came. On the eve of the
day upon which I was to be consumed by flame, the chief of my
tormentors entered the dungeon where I lay on straw, and embracing me
bade me be of good cheer, for the church had taken pity on my youth and
given me my freedom. At first I laughed wildly, for I thought that this
was but another torment, and not till I was freed of my fetters,
clothed in decent garments, and set at midnight without the prison
gates, would I believe that so good a thing had befallen me through the
hand of God. I stood weak and wondering outside the gates, not knowing
where to fly, and as I stood a woman glided up to me wrapped in a dark
cloak, who whispered ‘Come.’ That woman was your mother. She had
learned of my fate from the boasting of de Garcia and set herself to
save me. Thrice her plans failed, but at length through the help of
some cunning agent, gold won what was denied to justice and to mercy,
and my life and liberty were bought with a very great sum.
“That same night we were married and fled for Cadiz, your mother and I,
but not her mother, who was bedridden with a sickness. For my sake your
beloved mother abandoned her people, what remained to her of her
fortune after paying the price of my life, and her country, so strong
is the love of woman. All had been made ready, for at Cadiz lay an
English ship, the ‘Mary’ of Bristol, in which passage was taken for us.
But the ‘Mary’ was delayed in port by a contrary wind which blew so
strongly that notwithstanding his desire to save us, her master dared
not take the sea. Two days and a night we lay in the harbour, fearing
all things not without cause, and yet most happy in each other’s love.
Now those who had charge of me in the dungeon had given out that I had
escaped by the help of my master the Devil, and I was searched for
throughout the country side. De Garcia also, finding that his cousin
and affianced wife was missing, guessed that we two were not far apart.
It was his cunning, sharpened by jealousy and hate, that dogged us down
step by step till at length he found us.
“On the morning of the third day, the gale having abated, the anchor of
the ‘Mary’ was got home and she swung out into the tideway. As she came
round and while the seamen were making ready to hoist the sails, a boat
carrying some twenty soldiers, and followed by two others, shot
alongside and summoned the captain to heave to, that his ship might be
boarded and searched under warrant from the Holy Office. It chanced
that I was on deck at the time, and suddenly, as I prepared to hide
myself below, a man, in whom I knew de Garcia himself, stood up and
called out that I was the escaped heretic whom they sought. Fearing
lest his ship should be boarded and he himself thrown into prison with
the rest of his crew, the captain would then have surrendered me. But
I, desperate with fear, tore my clothes from my body and showed the
cruel scars that marked it.
“‘You are Englishmen,’ I cried to the sailors, ‘and will you deliver me
to these foreign devils, who am of your blood? Look at their
handiwork,’ and I pointed to the half-healed scars left by the red-hot
pincers; ‘if you give me up, you send me back to more of this torment
and to death by burning. Pity my wife if you will not pity me, or if
you will pity neither, then lend me a sword that by death I may save
myself from torture.’
“Then one of the seamen, a Southwold man who had known my father,
called out: ‘By God! I for one will stand by you, Thomas Wingfield. If
they want you and your sweet lady they must kill me first,’ and seizing
a bow from the rack he drew it out of its case and strung it, and
setting an arrow on the string he pointed it at the Spaniards in the
boat.
“Then the others broke into shouts of:
“‘If you want any man from among us, come aboard and take him, you
torturing devils,’ and the like.
“Seeing where the heart of the crew lay, the captain found courage in
his turn. He made no answer to the Spaniards, but bade half of the men
hoist the sails with all speed, and the rest make ready to keep off the
soldiers should they seek to board us.
“By now the other two boats had come up and fastened on to us with
their hooks. One man climbed into the chains and thence to the deck,
and I knew him for a priest of the Holy Office, one of those who had
stood by while I was tormented. Then I grew mad at the thought of all
that I had suffered, while that devil watched, bidding them lay on for
the love of God. Snatching the bow from the hand of the Southwold
seaman, I drew the arrow to its head and loosed. It did not miss its
mark, for like you, Thomas, I was skilled with the bow, and he dived
back into the sea with an English yard shaft in his heart.
“After that they tried to board us no more, though they shot at us with
arrows, wounding one man. The captain called to us to lay down our bows
and take cover behind the bulwarks, for by now the sails began to draw.
Then de Garcia stood up in the boat and cursed me and my wife.
“‘I will find you yet,’ he screamed, with many Spanish oaths and foul
words. ‘If I must wait for twenty years I will be avenged upon you and
all you love. Be assured of this, Luisa de Garcia, hide where you will,
I shall find you, and when we meet, you shall come with me for so long
as I will keep you or that shall be the hour of your death.’
“Then we sailed away for England, and the boats fell astern.
“My sons, this is the story of my youth, and of how I came to wed your
mother whom I have buried to-day. Juan de Garcia has kept his word.”
“Yet it seems strange,” said my brother, “that after all these years he
should have murdered her thus, whom you say he loved. Surely even the
evilest of men had shrunk from such a deed!”
“There is little that is strange about it,” answered my father. “How
can we know what words were spoken between them before he stabbed her?
Doubtless he told of some of them when he cried to Thomas that now they
would see what truth there was in prophecies. What did de Garcia swear
years since?—that she should come with him or he would kill her. Your
mother was still beautiful, Geoffrey, and he may have given her choice
between flight and death. Seek to know no more, son”—and suddenly my
father hid his face in his hands and broke into sobs that were dreadful
to hear.
“Would that you had told us this tale before, father,” I said so soon
as I could speak. “Then there would have lived a devil the less in the
world to-day, and I should have been spared a long journey.”
Little did I know how long that journey would be!