Hang the dog! O, that the sailors may but see it, and put him over the quay head. Ive a half mind to go and do it myself.
My dear Amyas, said Frank, laying two fingers on his arm, these men, whosoever they are, are the guests of our uncle, and therefore the guests of our family. Ham gained little by publishing Noahs shame; neither shall we, by publishing our uncles.
Murrain on you, old Franky, you never let a man speak his mind, and shame the devil.
I have lived long enough in courts, old Amyas, without a murrain on you, to have found out, first, that it is not so easy to shame the devil; and secondly, that it is better to outwit him; and the only way to do that, sweet chuck, is very often not to speak your mind at all. We will go down and visit them at Chapel in a day or two, and see if we cannot serve these reynards as the badger did the fox, when he found him in his hole, and could not get him out by evil savors.
How then?
Stuck a sweet nosegay in the door, which turned reynards stomach at once; and so overcame evil with good.
Well, thou art too good for this world, thats certain; so we will go home to breakfast. Those rogues are out of sight by now.
Nevertheless, Amyas was not proof against the temptation of going over to the inn-door, and asking who were the gentlemen who went with Mr. Leigh.
Gentlemen of Wales, said the ostler, who came last night in a pinnace from Milford-haven, and their names, Mr. Morgan Evans and Mr. Evan Morgans.
Mr. Judas Iscariot and Mr. Iscariot Judas, said Amyas between his teeth, and then observed aloud, that the Welsh gentlemen seemed rather poor horsemen.
So I said to Mr. Leighs groom, your worship. But he says that those parts be so uncommon rough and mountainous, that the poor gentlemen, you see, being enforced to hunt on foot, have no such opportunities as young gentlemen hereabout, like your worship; whom God preserve, and send a virtuous lady, and one worthy of you.
Thou hast a villainously glib tongue, fellow! said Amyas, who was thoroughly out of humor; and a sneaking down visage too, when I come to look at you. I doubt but you are a Papist too, I do!
Well, sir! and what if I am! I trust I dont break the queens laws by that. If I dont attend Northam church, I pay my months shilling for the use of the poor, as the act directs; and beyond that, neither you nor any man dare demand of me.
Dare! act directs! You rascally lawyer, you! and whence does an ostler like you get your shilling to pay withal? Answer me. The examinate found it so difficult to answer the question, that he suddenly became afflicted with deafness.
Do you hear? roared Amyas, catching at him with his lions paw.
Yes, missus; anon, anon, missus! quoth he to an imaginary landlady inside, and twisting under Amyass hand like an eel, vanished into the house, while Frank got the hot-headed youth away.
What a plague is one to do, then? That fellow was a Papist spy!
Of course he was! said Frank.
Then, what is one to do, if the whole country is full of them?
Not to make fools of ourselves about them, and so leave them to make fools of themselves.
Thats all very fine: butwell, I shall remember the villains face if I see him again.
There is no harm in that, said Frank.
Glad you think so.
Dont quarrel with me, Amyas, the first day.
Quarrel with thee, my darling old fellow! I had sooner kiss the dust off thy feet, if I were worthy of it. So now away home; my inside cries cupboard.
In the meanwhile Messrs. Evans and Morgans were riding away, as fast as the rough by-lanes would let them, along the fresh coast of the bay, steering carefully clear of Northam town on the one hand, and on the other, of Portledge, where dwelt that most Protestant justice of the peace, Mr. Coffin. And it was well for them that neither Amyas Leigh, nor indeed any other loyal Englishman, was by when they entered, as they shortly did, the lonely woods which stretch along the southern wall of the bay. For there Eustace Leigh pulled up short; and both he and his groom, leaping from their horses, knelt down humbly in the wet grass, and implored the blessing of the two valiant gentlemen of Wales, who, having graciously bestowed it with three fingers apiece, became thenceforth no longer Morgan Evans and Evan Morgans, Welshmen and gentlemen; but Father Parsons and Father Gampian, Jesuits, and gentlemen in no sense in which that word is applied in this book.
After a few minutes, the party were again in motion, ambling steadily and cautiously along the high table-land, towards Moorwinstow in the west; while beneath them on the right, at the mouth of rich-wooded glens, opened vistas of the bright blue bay, and beyond it the sandhills of Braunton, and the ragged rocks of Morte; while far away to the north and west the lonely isle of Lundy hung like a soft gray cloud.
But they were not destined to reach their point as peaceably as they could have wished. For just as they got opposite Clovelly dike, the huge old Roman encampment which stands about midway in their journey, they heard a halloo from the valley below, answered by a fainter one far ahead. At which, like a couple of rogues (as indeed they were), Father Campian and Father Parsons looked at each other, and then both stared round at the wild, desolate, open pasture (for the country was then all unenclosed), and the great dark furze-grown banks above their heads; and Campian remarked gently to Parsons, that this was a very dreary spot, and likely enough for robbers.
A likelier spot for us, Father, said Eustace, punning. The old Romans knew what they were about when they put their legions up aloft here to overlook land and sea for miles away; and we may thank them some day for their leavings. The banks are all sound; there is plenty of good water inside; and (added he in Latin), in case our Spanish friendsyou understand?
Pauca verba, my son! said Campian: but as he spoke, up from the ditch close beside him, as if rising out of the earth, burst through the furze-bushes an armed cavalier.
Pardon, gentlemen! shouted he, as the Jesuit and his horse recoiled against the groom. Stand, for your lives!
Mater caelorum! moaned Campian; while Parsons, who, as all the world knows, was a blustering bully enough (at least with his tongue), asked: What a murrain right had he to stop honest folks on the queens highway? confirming the same with a mighty oath, which he set down as peccatum veniale, on account of the sudden necessity; nay, indeed fraus pia, as proper to support the character of that valiant gentleman of Wales, Mr. Evan Morgans. But the horseman, taking no notice of his hint, dashed across the nose of Eustace Leighs horse, with a Hillo, old lad! where ridest so early? and peering down for a moment into the ruts of the narrow track-way, struck spurs into his horse, shouting, A fresh slot! right away for Hartland! Forward, gentlemen all! follow, follow, follow!
Who is this roysterer? asked Parsons, loftily.
Will Cary, of Clovelly; an awful heretic: and here come more behind.
And as he spoke four or five more mounted gallants plunged in and out of the great dikes, and thundered on behind the party; whose horses, quite understanding what game was up, burst into full gallop, neighing and squealing; and in another minute the hapless Jesuits were hurling along over moor and moss after a hart of grease.
Parsons, who, though a vulgar bully, was no coward, supported the character of Mr. Evan Morgans well enough; and he would have really enjoyed himself, had he not been in agonies of fear lest those precious saddle-bags in front of him should break from their lashings, and rolling to the earth, expose to the hoofs of heretic horses, perhaps to the gaze of heretic eyes, such a cargo of bulls, dispensations, secret correspondences, seditious tracts, and so forth, that at the very thought of their being seen, his head felt loose upon his shoulders. But the future martyr behind him, Mr. Morgan Evans, gave himself up at once to abject despair, and as he bumped and rolled along, sought vainly for comfort in professional ejaculations in the Latin tongue.
Mater intemerata! Eripe me eUgh! I am down! Adhaesit pavimento venter!No! I am not! El dilectum tuum e potestate canisAh! Audisti me inter cornua unicornium! Put this, too, down inugh!thy account in favor of my pooroh, sharpness of this saddle! Oh, whither, barbarous islanders!
Now riding on his quarter, not in the rough track-way like a cockney, but through the soft heather like a sportsman, was a very gallant knight whom we all know well by this time, Richard Grenville by name; who had made Mr. Cary and the rest his guests the night before, and then ridden out with them at five oclock that morning, after the wholesome early ways of the time, to rouse a well-known stag in the glens at Buckish, by help of Mr. Coffins hounds from Portledge. Who being as good a Latiner as Campians self, and overhearing both the scraps of psalm and the barbarous islanders, pushed his horse alongside of Mr. Eustace Leigh, and at the first check said, with two low bows towards the two strangers
I hope Mr. Leigh will do me the honor of introducing me to his guests. I should be sorry, and Mr. Cary also, that any gentle strangers should become neighbors of ours, even for a day, without our knowing who they are who honor our western Thule with a visit; and showing them ourselves all due requital for the compliment of their presence.
After which, the only thing which poor Eustace could do (especially as it was spoken loud enough for all bystanders), was to introduce in due form Mr. Evan Morgans and Mr. Morgan Evans, who, hearing the name, and, what was worse, seeing the terrible face with its quiet searching eye, felt like a brace of partridge-poults cowering in the stubble, with a hawk hanging ten feet over their heads.
Gentlemen, said Sir Richard blandly, cap in hand, I fear that your mails must have been somewhat in your way in this unexpected gallop. If you will permit my groom, who is behind, to disencumber you of them and carry them to Chapel, you will both confer an honor on me, and be enabled yourselves to see the mort more pleasantly.
A twinkle of fun, in spite of all his efforts, played about good Sir Richards eye as he gave this searching hint. The two Welsh gentlemen stammered out clumsy thanks; and pleading great haste and fatigue from a long journey, contrived to fall to the rear and vanish with their guides, as soon as the slot had been recovered.
Will! said Sir Richard, pushing alongside of young Cary.
Your worship?
Jesuits, Will!
May the father of lies fly away with them over the nearest cliff!
He will not do that while this Irish trouble is about. Those fellows are come to practise here for Saunders and Desmond.
Perhaps they have a consecrated banner in their bag, the scoundrels! Shall I and young Coffin on and stop them? Hard if the honest men may not rob the thieves once in a way.
No; give the devil rope, and he will hang himself. Keep thy tongue at home, and thine eyes too, Will.
How then?
Let Clovelly beach be watched night and day like any mousehole. No one can land round Harty Point with these south-westers. Stop every fellow who has the ghost of an Irish brogue, come he in or go he out, and send him over to me.
Some one should guard Bude-haven, sir.
Leave that to me. Now then, forward, gentlemen all, or the stag will take the sea at the Abbey.
And on they crashed down the Hartland glens, through the oak-scrub and the great crown-ferns; and the baying of the slow-hound and the tantaras of the horn died away farther and fainter toward the blue Atlantic, while the conspirators, with lightened hearts, pricked fast across Bursdon upon their evil errand. But Eustace Leigh had other thoughts and other cares than the safety of his fathers two mysterious guests, important as that was in his eyes; for he was one of the many who had drunk in sweet poison (though in his case it could hardly be called sweet) from the magic glances of the Rose of Torridge. He had seen her in the town, and for the first time in his life fallen utterly in love; and now that she had come down close to his fathers house, he looked on her as a lamb fallen unawares into the jaws of the greedy wolf, which he felt himself to be. For Eustaces love had little or nothing of chivalry, self-sacrifice, or purity in it; those were virtues which were not taught at Rheims. Careful as the Jesuits were over the practical morality of their pupils, this severe restraint had little effect in producing real habits of self-control. What little Eustace had learnt of women from them, was as base and vulgar as the rest of their teaching. What could it be else, if instilled by men educated in the schools of Italy and France, in the age which produced the foul novels of Cinthio and Bandello, and compelled Rabelais in order to escape the rack and stake, to hide the light of his great wisdom, not beneath a bushel, but beneath a dunghill; the age in which the Romish Church had made marriage a legalized tyranny, and the laity, by a natural and pardonable revulsion, had exalted adultery into a virtue and a science? That all love was lust; that all women had their price; that profligacy, though an ecclesiastical sin, was so pardonable, if not necessary, as to be hardly a moral sin, were notions which Eustace must needs have gathered from the hints of his preceptors; for their written works bear to this day fullest and foulest testimony that such was their opinion; and that their conception of the relation of the sexes was really not a whit higher than that of the profligate laity who confessed to them. He longed to marry Rose Salterne, with a wild selfish fury; but only that he might be able to claim her as his own property, and keep all others from her. Of her as a co-equal and ennobling helpmate; as one in whose honor, glory, growth of heart and soul, his own were inextricably wrapt up, he had never dreamed. Marriage would prevent God from being angry with that, with which otherwise He might be angry; and therefore the sanction of the Church was the more probable and safe course. But as yet his suit was in very embryo. He could not even tell whether Rose knew of his love; and he wasted miserable hours in maddening thoughts, and tost all night upon his sleepless bed, and rose next morning fierce and pale, to invent fresh excuses for going over to her uncles house, and lingering about the fruit which he dared not snatch.
CHAPTER IV
THE TWO WAYS OF BEING CROST IN LOVE
I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honor more.LOVELACE.
And what all this while has become of the fair breaker of so many hearts, to whom I have not yet even introduced my readers?
She was sitting in the little farm-house beside the mill, buried in the green depths of the valley of Combe, half-way between Stow and Chapel, sulking as much as her sweet nature would let her, at being thus shut out from all the grand doings at Bideford, and forced to keep a Martinmas Lent in that far western glen. So lonely was she, in fact, that though she regarded Eustace Leigh with somewhat of aversion, and (being a good Protestant) with a great deal of suspicion, she could not find it in her heart to avoid a chat with him whenever he came down to the farm and to its mill, which he contrived to do, on I know not what would-be errand, almost every day. Her uncle and aunt at first looked stiff enough at these visits, and the latter took care always to make a third in every conversation; but still Mr. Leigh was a gentlemans son, and it would not do to be rude to a neighboring squire and a good customer; and Rose was the rich mans daughter and they poor cousins, so it would not do either to quarrel with her; and besides, the pretty maid, half by wilfulness, and half by her sweet winning tricks, generally contrived to get her own way wheresoever she went; and she herself had been wise enough to beg her aunt never to leave them alone,for she could not a-bear the sight of Mr. Eustace, only she must have some one to talk with down here. On which her aunt considered, that she herself was but a simple country-woman; and that townsfolks ways of course must be very different from hers; and that people knew their own business best; and so forth, and let things go on their own way. Eustace, in the meanwhile, who knew well that the difference in creed between him and Rose was likely to be the very hardest obstacle in the way of his love, took care to keep his private opinions well in the background; and instead of trying to convert the folk at the mill, daily bought milk or flour from them, and gave it away to the old women in Moorwinstow (who agreed that after all, for a Papist, he was a godly young man enough); and at last, having taken counsel with Campian and Parsons on certain political plots then on foot, came with them to the conclusion that they would all three go to church the next Sunday. Where Messrs. Evan Morgans and Morgan Evans, having crammed up the rubrics beforehand, behaved themselves in a most orthodox and unexceptionable manner; as did also poor Eustace, to the great wonder of all good folks, and then went home flattering himself that he had taken in parson, clerk, and people; not knowing in his simple unsimplicity, and cunning foolishness, that each good wife in the parish was saying to the other, He turned Protestant? The devil turned monk! Hes only after Mistress Salterne, the young hypocrite.