Westward Ho!

C >> Charles Kingsley >> Westward Ho!


Therefore a sadness hung upon her all her life, and deepened in the days
of Queen Mary, when, as a notorious Protestant and heretic, she had had
to hide for her life among the hills and caverns of the Peak, and was
only saved, by the love which her husband's tenants bore her, and by his
bold declaration that, good Catholic as he was, he would run through
the body any constable, justice, or priest, yea, bishop or cardinal, who
dared to serve the queen's warrant upon his wife.

So she escaped: but, as I said, a sadness hung upon her all her life;
and the skirt of that dark mantle fell upon the young girl who had been
the partner of her wanderings and hidings among the lonely hills; and
who, after she was married, gave herself utterly up to God.

And yet in giving herself to God, Mrs. Leigh gave herself to her
husband, her children, and the poor of Northam Town, and was none the
less welcome to the Grenvilles, and Fortescues, and Chichesters, and
all the gentle families round, who honored her husband's talents, and
enjoyed his wit. She accustomed herself to austerities, which often
called forth the kindly rebukes of her husband; and yet she did so
without one superstitious thought of appeasing the fancied wrath of God,
or of giving Him pleasure (base thought) by any pain of hers; for her
spirit had been trained in the freest and loftiest doctrines of Luther's
school; and that little mystic "Alt-Deutsch Theologie" (to which the
great Reformer said that he owed more than to any book, save the Bible,
and St. Augustine) was her counsellor and comforter by day and night.

And now, at little past forty, she was left a widow: lovely still
in face and figure; and still more lovely from the divine calm which
brooded, like the dove of peace and the Holy Spirit of God (which indeed
it was), over every look, and word, and gesture; a sweetness which had
been ripened by storm, as well as by sunshine; which this world had
not given, and could not take away. No wonder that Sir Richard and Lady
Grenville loved her; no wonder that her children worshipped her; no
wonder that the young Amyas, when the first burst of grief was over, and
he knew again where he stood, felt that a new life had begun for him;
that his mother was no more to think and act for him only, but that he
must think and act for his mother. And so it was, that on the very day
after his father's funeral, when school-hours were over, instead of
coming straight home, he walked boldly into Sir Richard Grenville's
house, and asked to see his godfather.

"You must be my father now, sir," said he, firmly.

And Sir Richard looked at the boy's broad strong face, and swore a great
and holy oath, like Glasgerion's, "by oak, and ash, and thorn," that
he would be a father to him, and a brother to his mother, for Christ's
sake. And Lady Grenville took the boy by the hand, and walked home
with him to Burrough; and there the two fair women fell on each other's
necks, and wept together; the one for the loss which had been, the
other, as by a prophetic instinct, for the like loss which was to come
to her also. For the sweet St. Leger knew well that her husband's fiery
spirit would never leave his body on a peaceful bed; but that death (as
he prayed almost nightly that it might) would find him sword in
hand, upon the field of duty and of fame. And there those two vowed
everlasting sisterhood, and kept their vow; and after that all things
went on at Burrough as before; and Amyas rode, and shot, and boxed, and
wandered on the quay at Sir Richard's side; for Mrs. Leigh was too
wise a woman to alter one tittle of the training which her husband had
thought best for his younger boy. It was enough that her elder son had
of his own accord taken to that form of life in which she in her secret
heart would fain have moulded both her children. For Frank, God's
wedding gift to that pure love of hers, had won himself honor at home
and abroad; first at the school at Bideford; then at Exeter College,
where he had become a friend of Sir Philip Sidney's, and many another
young man of rank and promise; and next, in the summer of 1572, on his
way to the University of Heidelberg, he had gone to Paris, with (luckily
for him) letters of recommendation to Walsingham, at the English
Embassy: by which letters he not only fell in a second time with Philip
Sidney, but saved his own life (as Sidney did his) in the Massacre of
St. Bartholomew's Day. At Heidelberg he had stayed two years, winning
fresh honor from all who knew him, and resisting all Sidney's entreaties
to follow him into Italy. For, scorning to be a burden to his parents,
he had become at Heidelberg tutor to two young German princes, whom,
after living with them at their father's house for a year or more, he at
last, to his own great delight, took with him down to Padua, "to
perfect them," as he wrote home, "according to his insufficiency, in all
princely studies." Sidney was now returned to England; but Frank found
friends enough without him, such letters of recommendation and diplomas
did he carry from I know not how many princes, magnificos, and learned
doctors, who had fallen in love with the learning, modesty, and virtue
of the fair young Englishman. And ere Frank returned to Germany he had
satiated his soul with all the wonders of that wondrous land. He had
talked over the art of sonneteering with Tasso, the art of history
with Sarpi; he had listened, between awe and incredulity, to the daring
theories of Galileo; he had taken his pupils to Venice, that their
portraits might be painted by Paul Veronese; he had seen the palaces of
Palladio, and the merchant princes on the Rialto, and the argosies of
Ragusa, and all the wonders of that meeting-point of east and west; he
had watched Tintoretto's mighty hand "hurling tempestuous glories o'er
the scene;" and even, by dint of private intercession in high places,
had been admitted to that sacred room where, with long silver beard and
undimmed eye, amid a pantheon of his own creations, the ancient Titian,
patriarch of art, still lingered upon earth, and told old tales of the
Bellinis, and Raffaelle, and Michael Angelo, and the building of St.
Peter's, and the fire at Venice, and the sack of Rome, and of kings and
warriors, statesmen and poets, long since gone to their account, and
showed the sacred brush which Francis the First had stooped to pick up
for him. And (license forbidden to Sidney by his friend Languet) he had
been to Rome, and seen (much to the scandal of good Protestants at home)
that "right good fellow," as Sidney calls him, who had not yet eaten
himself to death, the Pope for the time being. And he had seen the
frescos of the Vatican, and heard Palestrina preside as chapel-master
over the performance of his own music beneath the dome of St. Peter's,
and fallen half in love with those luscious strains, till he was
awakened from his dream by the recollection that beneath that same dome
had gone up thanksgivings to the God of heaven for those blood-stained
streets, and shrieking women, and heaps of insulted corpses, which he
had beheld in Paris on the night of St. Bartholomew. At last, a few
months before his father died, he had taken back his pupils to their
home in Germany, from whence he was dismissed, as he wrote, with rich
gifts; and then Mrs. Leigh's heart beat high, at the thought that the
wanderer would return: but, alas! within a month after his father's
death, came a long letter from Frank, describing the Alps, and the
valleys of the Waldenses (with whose Barbes he had had much talk about
the late horrible persecutions), and setting forth how at Padua he had
made the acquaintance of that illustrious scholar and light of the age,
Stephanus Parmenius (commonly called from his native place, Budaeus),
who had visited Geneva with him, and heard the disputations of their
most learned doctors, which both he and Budaeus disliked for their hard
judgments both of God and man, as much as they admired them for their
subtlety, being themselves, as became Italian students, Platonists of
the school of Ficinus and Picus Mirandolensis. So wrote Master Frank,
in a long sententious letter, full of Latin quotations: but the letter
never reached the eyes of him for whose delight it had been penned: and
the widow had to weep over it alone, and to weep more bitterly than ever
at the conclusion, in which, with many excuses, Frank said that he had,
at the special entreaty of the said Budaeus, set out with him down the
Danube stream to Buda, that he might, before finishing his travels,
make experience of that learning for which the Hungarians were famous
throughout Europe. And after that, though he wrote again and again to
the father whom he fancied living, no letter in return reached him from
home for nearly two years; till, fearing some mishap, he hurried back to
England, to find his mother a widow, and his brother Amyas gone to the
South Seas with Captain Drake of Plymouth. And yet, even then, after
years of absence, he was not allowed to remain at home. For Sir Richard,
to whom idleness was a thing horrible and unrighteous, would have him up
and doing again before six months were over, and sent him off to Court
to Lord Hunsdon.

There, being as delicately beautiful as his brother was huge and strong,
he had speedily, by Carew's interest and that of Sidney and his Uncle
Leicester, found entrance into some office in the queen's household; and
he was now basking in the full sunshine of Court favor, and fair ladies'
eyes, and all the chivalries and euphuisms of Gloriana's fairyland, and
the fast friendship of that bright meteor Sidney, who had returned with
honor in 1577, from the delicate mission on behalf of the German and
Belgian Protestants, on which he had been sent to the Court of Vienna,
under color of condoling with the new Emperor Rodolph on his father's
death. Frank found him when he himself came to Court in 1579 as lovely
and loving as ever; and, at the early age of twenty-five, acknowledged
as one of the most remarkable men of Europe, the patron of all men of
letters, the counsellor of warriors and statesmen, and the confidant and
advocate of William of Orange, Languet, Plessis du Mornay, and all the
Protestant leaders on the Continent; and found, moreover, that the son
of the poor Devon squire was as welcome as ever to the friendship of
nature's and fortune's most favored, yet most unspoilt, minion.

Poor Mrs. Leigh, as one who had long since learned to have no self,
and to live not only for her children but in them, submitted without a
murmur, and only said, smiling, to her stern friend--"You took away my
mastiff-pup, and now you must needs have my fair greyhound also."

"Would you have your fair greyhound, dear lady, grow up a tall and
true Cotswold dog, that can pull down a stag of ten, or one of those
smooth-skinned poppets which the Florence ladies lead about with a ring
of bells round its neck, and a flannel farthingale over its loins?"

Mrs. Leigh submitted; and was rewarded after a few months by a letter,
sent through Sir Richard, from none other than Gloriana herself, in
which she thanked her for "the loan of that most delicate and flawless
crystal, the soul of her excellent son," with more praises of him than I
have room to insert, and finished by exalting the poor mother above the
famed Cornelia; "for those sons, whom she called her jewels, she
only showed, yet kept them to herself: but you, madam, having two as
precious, I doubt not, as were ever that Roman dame's, have, beyond her
courage, lent them both to your country and to your queen, who therein
holds herself indebted to you for that which, if God give her grace, she
will repay as becomes both her and you." Which epistle the sweet mother
bedewed with holy tears, and laid by in the cedar-box which held her
household gods, by the side of Frank's innumerable diplomas and letters
of recommendation, the Latin whereof she was always spelling over
(although she understood not a word of it), in hopes of finding, here
and there, that precious excellentissimus Noster Franciscus Leighius
Anglus, which was all in all to the mother's heart.

But why did Amyas go to the South Seas? Amyas went to the South Seas for
two causes, each of which has, before now, sent many a lad to far worse
places: first, because of an old schoolmaster; secondly, because of a
young beauty. I will take them in order and explain.

Vindex Brimblecombe, whilom servitor of Exeter College, Oxford (commonly
called Sir Vindex, after the fashion of the times), was, in those days,
master of the grammar-school of Bideford. He was, at root, a godly and
kind-hearted pedant enough; but, like most schoolmasters in the old
flogging days, had his heart pretty well hardened by long, baneful
license to inflict pain at will on those weaker than himself; a power
healthful enough for the victim (for, doubtless, flogging is the best of
all punishments, being not only the shortest, but also a mere bodily and
animal, and not, like most of our new-fangled "humane" punishments, a
spiritual and fiendish torture), but for the executioner pretty certain
to eradicate, from all but the noblest spirits, every trace of chivalry
and tenderness for the weak, as well, often, as all self-control and
command of temper. Be that as it may, old Sir Vindex had heart enough
to feel that it was now his duty to take especial care of the fatherless
boy to whom he tried to teach his qui, quae, quod: but the only outcome
of that new sense of responsibility was a rapid increase in the number
of floggings, which rose from about two a week to one per diem, not
without consequences to the pedagogue himself.

For all this while, Amyas had never for a moment lost sight of his
darling desire for a sea-life; and when he could not wander on the quay
and stare at the shipping, or go down to the pebble-ridge at Northam,
and there sit, devouring, with hungry eyes, the great expanse of ocean,
which seemed to woo him outward into boundless space, he used to console
himself, in school-hours, by drawing ships and imaginary charts upon his
slate, instead of minding his "humanities."

Now it befell, upon an afternoon, that he was very busy at a map, or
bird's-eye view of an island, whereon was a great castle, and at the
gate thereof a dragon, terrible to see; while in the foreground came
that which was meant for a gallant ship, with a great flag aloft, but
which, by reason of the forest of lances with which it was crowded,
looked much more like a porcupine carrying a sign-post; and, at the
roots of those lances, many little round o's, whereby was signified
the heads of Amyas and his schoolfellows, who were about to slay that
dragon, and rescue the beautiful princess who dwelt in that enchanted
tower. To behold which marvel of art, all the other boys at the same
desk must needs club their heads together, and with the more security,
because Sir Vindex, as was his custom after dinner, was lying back in
his chair, and slept the sleep of the just.

But when Amyas, by special instigation of the evil spirit who haunts
successful artists, proceeded further to introduce, heedless of
perspective, a rock, on which stood the lively portraiture of Sir
Vindex--nose, spectacles, gown, and all; and in his hand a brandished
rod, while out of his mouth a label shrieked after the runaways,
"You come back!" while a similar label replied from the gallant bark,
"Good-bye, master!" the shoving and tittering rose to such a pitch that
Cerberus awoke, and demanded sternly what the noise was about. To which,
of course, there was no answer.

"You, of course, Leigh! Come up, sir, and show me your exercitation."

Now of Amyas's exercitation not a word was written; and, moreover,
he was in the very article of putting the last touches to Mr.
Brimblecombe's portrait. Whereon, to the astonishment of all hearers, he
made answer--

"All in good time, sir!" and went on drawing.

"In good time, sir! Insolent, veni et vapula!"

But Amyas went on drawing.

"Come hither, sirrah, or I'll flay you alive!"

"Wait a bit!" answered Amyas.

The old gentleman jumped up, ferula in hand, and darted across the
school, and saw himself upon the fatal slate.

"Proh flagitium! what have we here, villain?" and clutching at his
victim, he raised the cane. Whereupon, with a serene and cheerful
countenance, up rose the mighty form of Amyas Leigh, a head and
shoulders above his tormentor, and that slate descended on the bald
coxcomb of Sir Vindex Brimblecombe, with so shrewd a blow that slate and
pate cracked at the same instant, and the poor pedagogue dropped to the
floor, and lay for dead.

After which Amyas arose, and walked out of the school, and so quietly
home; and having taken counsel with himself, went to his mother, and
said, "Please, mother, I've broken schoolmaster's head."

"Broken his head, thou wicked boy!" shrieked the poor widow; "what didst
do that for?"

"I can't tell," said Amyas, penitently; "I couldn't help it. It looked
so smooth, and bald, and round, and--you know?"

"I know? Oh, wicked boy! thou hast given place to the devil; and now,
perhaps, thou hast killed him."

"Killed the devil?" asked Amyas, hopefully but doubtfully.

"No, killed the schoolmaster, sirrah! Is he dead?"

"I don't think he's dead; his coxcomb sounded too hard for that. But had
not I better go and tell Sir Richard?"

The poor mother could hardly help laughing, in spite of her terror,
at Amyas's perfect coolness (which was not in the least meant for
insolence), and being at her wits' end, sent him, as usual, to his
godfather.

Amyas rehearsed his story again, with pretty nearly the same
exclamations, to which he gave pretty nearly the same answers; and
then--"What was he going to do to you, then, sirrah?"

"Flog me, because I could not write my exercise, and so drew a picture
of him instead."

"What! art afraid of being flogged?"

"Not a bit; besides, I'm too much accustomed to it; but I was busy, and
he was in such a desperate hurry; and, oh, sir, if you had but seen his
bald head, you would have broken it yourself!"

Now Sir Richard had, twenty years ago, in like place, and very much
in like manner, broken the head of Vindex Brimblecombe's father,
schoolmaster in his day, and therefore had a precedent to direct him;
and he answered--"Amyas, sirrah! those who cannot obey will never be fit
to rule. If thou canst not keep discipline now, thou wilt never make a
company or a crew keep it when thou art grown. Dost mind that, sirrah?"

"Yes," said Amyas.

"Then go back to school this moment, sir, and be flogged."

"Very well," said Amyas, considering that he had got off very cheaply;
while Sir Richard, as soon as he was out of the room, lay back in his
chair, and laughed till he cried again.

So Amyas went back, and said that he was come to be flogged; whereon the
old schoolmaster, whose pate had been plastered meanwhile, wept tears of
joy over the returning prodigal, and then gave him such a switching as
he did not forget for eight-and-forty hours.

But that evening Sir Richard sent for old Vindex, who entered,
trembling, cap in hand; and having primed him with a cup of sack,
said--"Well, Mr. Schoolmaster! My godson has been somewhat too much for
you to-day. There are a couple of nobles to pay the doctor."

"O Sir Richard, gratias tibi et Domino! but the boy hits shrewdly
hard. Nevertheless I have repaid him in inverse kind, and set him an
imposition, to learn me one of Phaedrus his fables, Sir Richard, if you
do not think it too much."

"Which, then? The one about the man who brought up a lion's cub, and was
eaten by him in play at last?"

"Ah, Sir Richard! you have always a merry wit. But, indeed, the boy is a
brave boy, and a quick boy, Sir Richard, but more forgetful than Lethe;
and--sapienti loquor--it were well if he were away, for I shall never
see him again without my head aching. Moreover, he put my son Jack upon
the fire last Wednesday, as you would put a football, though he is a
year older, your worship, because, he said, he looked so like a roasting
pig, Sir Richard."

"Alas, poor Jack!"

"And what's more, your worship, he is pugnax, bellicosus, gladiator,
a fire-eater and swash-buckler, beyond all Christian measure; a
very sucking Entellus, Sir Richard, and will do to death some of her
majesty's lieges erelong, if he be not wisely curbed. It was but a month
agone that he bemoaned himself, I hear, as Alexander did, because there
were no more worlds to conquer, saying that it was a pity he was so
strong; for, now he had thrashed all the Bideford lads, he had no sport
left; and so, as my Jack tells me, last Tuesday week he fell upon a
young man of Barnstaple, Sir Richard, a hosier's man, sir, and plebeius
(which I consider unfit for one of his blood), and, moreover, a man full
grown, and as big as either of us (Vindex stood five feet four in his
high-heeled shoes), and smote him clean over the quay into the mud,
because he said that there was a prettier maid in Barnstaple (your
worship will forgive my speaking of such toys, to which my fidelity
compels me) than ever Bideford could show; and then offered to do the
same to any man who dare say that Mistress Rose Salterne, his worship
the mayor's daughter, was not the fairest lass in all Devon."

"Eh? Say that over again, my good sir," quoth Sir Richard, who had thus
arrived, as we have seen, at the second count of the indictment. "I say,
good sir, whence dost thou hear all these pretty stories?"

"My son Jack, Sir Richard, my son Jack, ingenui vultus puer."

"But not, it seems, ingenui pudoris. Tell thee what, Mr. Schoolmaster,
no wonder if thy son gets put on the fire, if thou employ him as a
tale-bearer. But that is the way of all pedagogues and their sons,
by which they train the lads up eavesdroppers and favor-curriers, and
prepare them--sirrah, do you hear?--for a much more lasting and hotter
fire than that which has scorched thy son Jack's nether-tackle. Do you
mark me, sir?"

The poor pedagogue, thus cunningly caught in his own trap, stood
trembling before his patron, who, as hereditary head of the Bridge
Trust, which endowed the school and the rest of the Bideford charities,
could, by a turn of his finger, sweep him forth with the besom
of destruction; and he gasped with terror as Sir Richard went
on--"Therefore, mind you, Sir Schoolmaster, unless you shall promise me
never to hint word of what has passed between us two, and that neither
you nor yours shall henceforth carry tales of my godson, or speak his
name within a day's march of Mistress Salterne's, look to it, if I do
not--"

What was to be done in default was not spoken; for down went poor old
Vindex on his knees:--

"Oh, Sir Richard! Excellentissime, immo praecelsissime Domine et
Senator, I promise! O sir, Miles et Eques of the Garter, Bath, and
Golden Fleece, consider your dignities, and my old age--and my great
family--nine children--oh, Sir Richard, and eight of them girls!--Do
eagles war with mice? says the ancient!"

"Thy large family, eh? How old is that fat-witted son of thine?"

"Sixteen, Sir Richard; but that is not his fault, indeed!"

"Nay, I suppose he would be still sucking his thumb if he dared--get up,
man--get up and seat yourself."

"Heaven forbid!" murmured poor Vindex, with deep humility.

"Why is not the rogue at Oxford, with a murrain on him, instead of
lurching about here carrying tales and ogling the maidens?"

"I had hoped, Sir Richard--and therefore I said it was not his
fault--but there was never a servitorship at Exeter open."

"Go to, man--go to! I will speak to my brethren of the Trust, and to
Oxford he shall go this autumn, or else to Exeter gaol, for a strong
rogue, and a masterless man. Do you hear?"

"Hear?--oh, sir, yes! and return thanks. Jack shall go, Sir Richard,
doubt it not--I were mad else; and, Sir Richard, may I go too?"

And therewith Vindex vanished, and Sir Richard enjoyed a second mighty
laugh, which brought in Lady Grenville, who possibly had overheard the
whole; for the first words she said were--

"I think, my sweet life, we had better go up to Burrough."

So to Burrough they went; and after much talk, and many tears, matters
were so concluded that Amyas Leigh found himself riding joyfully towards
Plymouth, by the side of Sir Richard, and being handed over to Captain
Drake, vanished for three years from the good town of Bideford.

And now he is returned in triumph, and the observed of all observers;
and looks round and round, and sees all faces whom he expects, except
one; and that the one which he had rather see than his mother's? He is
not quite sure. Shame on himself!

And now the prayers being ended, the rector ascends the pulpit, and
begins his sermon on the text:--

"The heaven and the heaven of heavens are the Lord's; the whole earth
hath he given to the children of men;" deducing therefrom craftily, to
the exceeding pleasure of his hearers, the iniquity of the Spaniards
in dispossessing the Indians, and in arrogating to themselves the
sovereignty of the tropic seas; the vanity of the Pope of Rome in
pretending to bestow on them the new countries of America; and the
justice, valor, and glory of Mr. Drake and his expedition, as testified
by God's miraculous protection of him and his, both in the Straits of
Magellan, and in his battle with the Galleon; and last, but not least,
upon the rock by Celebes, when the Pelican lay for hours firmly fixed,
and was floated off unhurt, as it were by miracle, by a sudden shift of
wind.