Читать книгу For God and Gold - Julian Stafford Corbett - Страница 8

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'Hail! man of learning,' cried Harry to me, as the day after my coming home I rode up to Ashtead. He was standing at the gate about to mount his horse as though for a journey. He had grown a man since I saw him, and looked handsomer and happier than I had ever seen him.

'Hail! man of courts and camps,' I cried him back, 'whither away so fast?'

'No whither, lad,' said he, 'since you are come, and whither I was going I will not tell you, till I hear first where your life-blood has gone. 'Slight, man, you look as pale and dry as a love-lorn stock-fish. What ails you?'

'Nought but a piece of an ague,' said I, feeling the sight of him like medicine to me, 'and perhaps a surfeit of weary wits.'

'Well, save us from universities, then,' answered he. 'Courts and camps have their dangers, they say, but, 'fore heaven, I think your college is a very Castle Perilous beside them!'

'How will you make that good, most sapient brother?'

'Nay, the maxim is good already, without my making. For, look you, in camp a man shall lose at most his life, and at Court his heart; but your college puts his spirits in danger, and to be spiritless is worse a thousand times than to be dead or even in love.'

'Well, I think you may be right, and in any case have enough spirits to share with me.'

'Nay, if you want spirits, come with me whither I was going, and I will show you a man who has enough to set a whole graveyard singing.'

'Why, 'tis a very resurrection of spirits. Come, tell me who is your miracle man?'

'Who is he? Why, who should he be but that man of men, that prince of good companions, Frank Drake?'

'Nay, then I am for you; if it were only to keep peace amongst my members. For my ears have had so much of him that I think my eyes are like to fall out with them from pure jealousy.'

'Well, 'tis a bargain, then; and we both go a-fishing with him in his bark.'

'In his bark? Is he then master already?'

'Ay, that he is. Old Master Death mastered his old master, and now he is his own master and his bark's too. For he got that by the old dog's will.'

'Well, I am right glad to hear it. But tell me, is he all his brothers say?'

'And more, and more, and more again! Why, man, he is my own Lord of Bedford with a Will Somers rolled into him, and who could be more of a man than that? But we can talk of this as we go along. First come within and see my father, while Lashmer gives your horse a bite, that we may ride forward.'

Lashmer, I had better say here, was son to Miles, my steward. He rode with me on this day, and henceforth became my body-servant and most trusty and trusted follower. He was a broad-faced, red-haired lad, but not very hard-featured, though his face was just of that honest Kentish sort that made one feel compelled to laugh by the mere looking at it.

Sir Fulke greeted me boisterously, as usual, with a hearty welcome well peppered with oaths, which, I must say, burnt my palate more them they used to.

'Art going fishing with Harry?' said my guardian, when our greeting was done.

'Yes, sir,' cried Harry; 'we are going to catch Spanish mackerel.'

They both laughed heartily at this, I knew not why; but not having heard of such a fish as he named, I thought it was a jest of Harry's which my scholar's wits were too hard to see.

'Have you brought your snappers with you?' asked Harry.

'Yes,' said I; 'a pretty case of short ones that were my father's, since Miles said the roads were far from safe. But will you shoot these fish?'

'No, lad,' said Harry, and he and Sir Fulke both seemed to be strangling another laugh; 'but, as you say, one meets fellow-travellers now whom it is well to treat at a distance, so every gentleman rides with a brace of dags or so in his saddle.' 'Blame yourselves for it,' said Sir Fulke. 'For since your new Reformation men have sent fish out of fashion, in spite of all Mr. Secretary can do with his acts and ordinances, fishermen have to fish ashore. The hundred of Hoo swarms with such folk, so that a man may hardly come to Gravesend in safety. There is never a lane in Kent which some of the valiant lubbers will not drag once in a week for any fin that's stirring. God knows what will become of the sea-service if gentlemen do not set the fashion for fishing again,' and therewith the old knight chuckled again till his face was redder than a doughty turkey-cock's.

'Come, let us away,' said Harry, 'or Frank Drake will have a rod for me. He is testy as the devil if a man be late.'

'What!' said I, 'will he not bide a gentleman's time?'

'Wait till you see him,' answered Harry. 'The sea, in Frank's company, is a mighty leveller of gentility. Here, take this; we shall be out all night.'

So saying, he tossed me a cloak, and we set out.

The way proved all too short, so much had we to tell each other. Harry was overflowing with the delights of the Court. He seemed able to talk for ever on the pageants and masques, in which, to my sorrow, he had taken a great share; for at Cambridge the men of our party began to look askance at such vanities.

It pleased me better to hear him speak of the grace and beauty of the Court ladies, who seemed to have been very kind to him. He spoke of them in a tone of chivalrous rapture, which made me sometimes long to have his gifts, that I too might please women, and know how to speak with them, and be thought worthy to be their squire. But I tried hard, when he spoke of such things with kindling eyes, to crush my chivalry, having well learnt my lesson that this, too, was a carnal vanity.

Above all, he praised the Queen as one that shone like a ruby amongst pearls, and there I suffered myself to join his song. I think he was as much in love with her as I.

Next to the Queen he spoke most of a little girl, called Anne St. John, who, from what he said, seemed rather his tyrant than his playfellow. She was ever with the Earl, either at Russell House or at Woburn, being a niece of the good Countess Margaret, his beloved wife, who died soon after Harry joined the Earl's household. My lord found great comfort, Harry said, in the child's pretty ways as much as in her beauty, for she had ruddy hair and deep brown eyes, like the Queen.

She was moreover much beloved by her cousins, the Earl's daughters, so that it came about that Harry saw her every day, and became her playfellow and willing servant. He made me laugh to hear him speak of her tyrannous ways and her jealousy.

'I know not what kind of woman she will grow,' he said; 'but now she is the sweetest toy a man could want, and wayward as a haggard. Yet my lord will often curb her in his dry, merry way, and she will be as thoughtful after it as a little Solomon. Were her pretty spirit in a colt I would not care to have his breaking; yet I think that any life which my lord will take in hand will never grow awry.'

So he fell to speaking of his lord, Sir Francis Russell, Earl of Bedford, to whom he seemed as devoted as ever I was to Mr. Cartwright; above all, when he followed him to the north, on his being named Governor of Berwick and Warden of the East Marches, and saw how great a statesman and soldier he was.

'Truly,' said he, 'may I count myself fortunate in thus being able to go in the train of so famous a captain to the best school of arms in the country, as Berwick is held to be, not only because of the passages of arms that continually take place on the Border, but also by reason of the number of skilled and veteran soldiers that are gathered there.'

'Then you had a plenitude of professors,' said I.

'Ay, and a plenitude of practice too,' he answered; 'and that in all military sciences. For my lord's first care was to increase the strength of the defences of the place. So I saw all that craft, besides gunnery and weapon exercise, both in play and earnest. Furthermore, my lord took me for secretary when he rode during the summer with Sir John Foster to settle the limits of the marches, and there I learned much of the conduct of military councils and affairs, together with many other things that a prudent soldier should know and be silent about. Certes, I think I have as much valiant scholarship in six months as many come by in six years.'

'And no wonder,' said I, 'with such a godly and warlike tutor.'

'Ay,' cried Harry, with enthusiasm, 'he is a very pattern of all valour, piety, and gentleness, and rightly called "the mirror of true honour and Christian nobility."'

Indeed, I think he was right. For surely never was royal gift more wisely disposed than the wealth with which King Henry endowed Lord Russell and his father. Would God the whole of what he stripped from the monasteries had fallen into no worse vessels than those two! What a pattern of reformation, then, might England indeed have been to all the world, lifted far above the reach of even Papist sneer and cavil,—in very deed domicilium quietatis et humanitatis!

I could fully share Harry's regret when he told me that he had left Berwick for good and all. But it was needful that he should be a short time with his father before setting forth on his travels into France and Italy—a course which the Earl had himself strongly urged, as being most necessary for the perfect shaping of a gentleman and the building up of a full-grown manhood, wherein, he held, there was no such hindrance either in court or camp or council as in youth to have known no travel.

Talking thus together of the two years in which we had both passed into the dawn of manhood amidst such different scenes, we came to Rochester, where we left our horses in Lashmer's charge and took the boat, which two of Mr. Drake's boys had brought for Harry.

It made a man of me again to be once more on the river, though I did not like to see Harry whisper to the two Drakes and see them nod and grin in reply. But I soon forgot this in chatting, as we did, chiefly of Frank and his boat.

'Look there!' cried the boys at last. 'Was ever such a dainty?'

I looked and saw a smart-looking craft, such as is used in the Zeeland trade, but in better trim than most, lying at moorings close to Mr. Drake's hulk.

The boys gave us a lusty cheer as we ran alongside their home and I sprang on deck. Mr. Drake embraced me with such fervour and smell of tar that I was well-nigh undone, but John and Joseph tore me from him, crying, 'Come and see Frank, come and see Frank!'

Seizing each an arm, they dragged me to the cabin under the poop, where for the first time I saw that prince of captains, Francis Drake.

Ah! how my heart is lifted up when I think of that September afternoon; when I contemplate the condition of two men that day about to enter into a life-long struggle which was to glitter with the most glorious deeds the world has seen: the one a plain rough mariner, in his coarse sailor's slops, sitting in a dingy cabin, intent on a rude map of the Indies, the meanest ship-master of an island queen; the other an emperor in purple and gold, seated on the loftiest throne in Europe, the most powerful monarch in the world, with the crowns of six kingdoms clustered on his brow, and the gold of two worlds pouring into his lap;—the one surrounded by rude fisher lads; the other surfeited with the homage of the most skilful captains, the proudest nobles, the most cunning councillors these modern times have bred.

Surely no more notable example of God's power to humble pride and reward wickedness has ever been seen. Little could I guess then what his lot was to be, though when I looked on the man I might have known there was no task too great for Francis Drake to achieve.

God never made a man, I think, more fitted for the work he was set to do. His stature was low, but though he was then not past twenty years old, his deep broad chest and massive limbs showed the strength that was to be his. His head well matched his body, being hard-looking and round and most pleasant to look on, because of the bright brown locks that curled thick and close all over it, and the round blue eyes that shone full and clear and steadfast from under his thick arched brows. His mouth, which was already slightly fringed with a light-coloured beard, was of a piece with the rest, wide and good-humoured, with full, well-formed, mobile lips, such as we look for in an orator, and withal firm and self-reliant. His colour, moreover, was fresh and fair, as of a man whom no sickness could take hold of; and his whole aspect so well-favoured and full of cheerful resolution as I could not wonder made his family set him up to be their idol.

'I am very glad to see you, Mr. Festing,' said he, rising up as I entered and holding out his hand very frankly. 'I am glad you are come. We want strong hands for our fishing. Jack has told me what kind of blow you can strike.'

'But I have only a scholar's arm now,' I said. 'Once I could pull an oar and tally on a drag-net indifferently well, but I doubt study has softened me.'

Arching his eyebrows still more, he looked at me with that expression which I grew to know so well, and which as much as anything, I think, made him the master of men he was. It was a look half inquisitive, half astonished, yet wholly good-humoured. It seemed to wonder if a man could be so foolish as to try to deceive or thwart him, and to be ready to laugh at the folly of such an attempt rather than to resent it. Though there was plainly something in my speech he did not understand, yet he was soon satisfied, and burst out into a boisterous laugh.

''Fore God,' said he, 'you are a merry wag,' and then laughed on so heartily that no man could help taking the fever, and I laughed too, though I knew no better than the stern-post where the jest was.

'Yes, you may laugh,' said Mr. Drake, who had joined us. 'Frank knows how to fish, so do my boys. They will catch you now bigger fish than any man's sons in all Kent.'

'Where is James?' asked I, not seeing Mr. Drake's fourth son. 'Will he not go with us?'

'Peace,' said Harry, as the preacher turned away, and the laughter was hushed. 'Don't you know?'

'Let me tell him,' said Frank Drake, looking so stern as almost to seem another man. 'You must know, Mr. Festing, nigh a year ago he was 'prenticed in a ship that traded to Spain. We have no certain news of her, but very ugly tidings of what befell a crew that sailed in her company.'

'What tidings were those?' asked I.

'Come away,' said Frank; 'dad forbids us to speak of it. "Avenge it, if you will," says he, "but speak not of it."'

We went apart, and he told me one of those stories of which my ears were soon but too well filled: of a ship's crew seized in a remote port of Spain, and on pretext of some unruly conduct of one or two half-drunken men ashore, first thrown into prison, and then handed over to the officers of the Inquisition.

'Such, we fear, is Jim's fate,' said Drake, as he ended his story. 'It is most like he lies rotting now with his shipmates in some filthy dungeon, if worse has not befallen him at the hands of those hell-hounds. But come, let us not think of it. The tide has turned, and it is time we were away.'

We were soon aboard Frank Drake's boat, which was called the Gazehound. I could not help seeing how trim she was from stem to stern compared with other such craft engaged in the French and Zeeland trade. Nor could I but wonder at the ready despatch with which Frank's crew obeyed his orders. Indeed, we were hardly aboard a minute before we were running fast towards the sea, with a gentle breeze behind us, and the wicked river rushing recklessly along with us.

I know not whether it was some inward warning that made the Medway look so dark and cruel as it curled about our sides, or whether it was the effect on my worn brain of Frank Drake's fearful tale, which he told with fierce earnestness. Yet as the misty darkness deepened and the low waste of marsh on either hand began to be lost in the night, a sort of horror came over me, perhaps a part of my ague. It seemed that we, the river and ourselves, were rushing wildly on to some deed that we must hide from heaven. The curdling river seemed some huge snake, for whose help we had sold our souls. Rejoicing at its work and the folly of its dupe, it seemed to hiss in low laughter like a fiend's about us.

I turned from where I looked over the side to break the spell. Harry and all the boys, with one or two of the crew, were gathered aft around Frank as he sat tiller in hand. I could see them all by the light of the lantern we carried. Frank was telling them another hideous story of Spanish treachery and cruelty to English mariners who had come to trade in the Canaries.

His wide blue eyes were flashing in the excitement of his tale, and Harry and the Drake boys were no less excited than he. Even then I could see he had that wonderful gift of words by which afterwards at his will he could always raise or calm a storm amongst his followers.

Still the night deepened and the river grew darker and more devilish, as hand in hand with it we sped on through the darkness to our work. The flickering lantern cast strange lights and shadows upon the little group at the stern, till they seemed to be rather like some foul spirits than my good friends.

They cried to me to join them, but I said I was weary with a headache because of my sickness, and would sleep. I crept in then below the foredeck, and lay down upon a sail. There was something beneath it which made it an uneasy bed. I raised the canvas to see what it might be, and beheld some half-dozen longbows, quite new, and several sheaves of arrows. I think my sleep would have been easier had I not sought to remove the cause of my uneasiness.

For now I began to guess the meaning of all the jests I had heard, and questioned Harry when soon after he came to lie beside me.

'What fish, Harry,' I asked, 'is this that you bring me to catch with pistols and long-bows?'

'A fish that swims from Antwerp,' answered Harry, laughing. 'Wait and you shall see, if we have luck or judgment.'

There was little laughter in me as I lay there in the dim lantern light, with the sound of the wicked river whispering temptation in my ear. Was it that which seemed to take from me the power to rebuke in him what seemed to me no less than sin; or was it shame lest he should think that Cambridge had so softened and unmanned me that I no longer would follow wherever he led?

Harry must be right, thought I, and Frank Drake too! It must be right, yet would God I were in my trundle bed at Mr. Cartwright's side again! Surely Cambridge was sorely changing me. The great struggle of my life had begun, though I knew it not; the strife for the mastery of me between the inward man-made life of scholarship and vain hurry after God, and the strong, pure, out-o'-door life of England that God Himself had given me for my birthday gift.

Who shall say which is best? Not I, now I am old; but then, as I lay there beside Harry, in my vanity and blindness I said to myself: 'Surely his life is not of God; it is mine that is from heaven, the search after wisdom, the merciless war for truth, the exalting of the spirit and abasement of the body.'

My lips were trembling with a prayer that he might be turned and grow like me, but then I opened my eyes to look at him through the dim lantern light, and my prayer died unborn. Surely that gently-breathing figure, lying so calm and careless there in all its manly beauty, surely that must be all God's work, and what came of it His work as well.

So let me cease to resist, and let the hissing river hurry me on wheresoever it will with him.