Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley (book club reads txt) 📖

calling, in the matters of daily life, which we now in our covert atheism term “secular and carnal;” and when, the sermon ended, the communion service had begun, and the bread and the wine were given to those five mariners, every gallant gentleman who stood near them (for the press would not allow of more) knelt and received the elements with them as a thing of course, and then rose to join with heart and voice not merely in the Gloria in Excelsis, but in the Te Deum, which was the closing act of all. And no sooner had the clerk given out the first verse of that great hymn, than it was taken up by five hundred voices within the church, in bass and tenor, treble and alto (for every one could sing in those days, and the westcountry folk, as now, were fuller than any of music), the chant was caught up by the crowd outside, and rang away over roof and river, up to the woods of Annery, and down to the marshes of the Taw, in wave on wave of harmony. And as it died away, the shipping in the river made answer with their thunder, and the crowd streamed out again toward the Bridge Head, whither Sir Richard Grenville, and Sir John Chichester, and Mr. Salterne, the Mayor, led the five heroes of the day to await the pageant which had been prepared in honor of them. And as they went by, there were few in the crowd who did not press forward to shake them by the hand, and not only them, but their parents and kinsfolk who walked behind, till Mrs. Leigh, her stately joy quite broken down at last, could only answer between her sobs, “Go along, good people—God a mercy, go along—and God send you all such sons!”

“God give me back mine!” cried an old red-cloaked dame in the crowd; and then, struck by some hidden impulse, she sprang forward, and catching hold of young Amyas’s sleeve—

“Kind sir! dear sir! For Christ his sake answer a poor old widow woman!”

“What is it, dame?” quoth Amyas, gently enough.

“Did you see my son to the Indies?—my son Salvation?”

“Salvation?” replied he, with the air of one who recollected the name.

“Yes, sure, Salvation Yeo, of Clovelly. A tall man and black, and sweareth awfully in his talk, the Lord forgive him!”

Amyas recollected now. It was the name of the sailor who had given him the wondrous horn five years ago.

“My good dame,” said he, “the Indies are a very large place, and your son may be safe and sound enough there, without my having seen him. I knew one Salvation Yeo. But he must have come with— By the by, godfather, has Mr. Oxenham come home?”

There was a dead silence for a moment among the gentlemen round; and then Sir Richard said solemnly, and in a low voice, turning away from the old dame,—

“Amyas, Mr. Oxenham has not come home; and from the day he sailed, no word has been heard of him and all his crew.”

“Oh, Sir Richard! and you kept me from sailing with him! Had I known this before I went into church, I had had one mercy more to thank God for.”

“Thank Him all the more in thy life, my child!” whispered his mother.

“And no news of him whatsoever?”

“None; but that the year after he sailed, a ship belonging to Andrew Barker, of Bristol, took out of a Spanish caravel, somewhere off the Honduras, his two brass guns; but whence they came the Spaniard knew not, having bought them at Nombre de Dios.”

“Yes!” cried the old woman; “they brought home the guns, and never brought home my boy!”

“They never saw your boy, mother,” said Sir Richard.

“But I’ve seen him! I saw him in a dream four years last Whitsuntide, as plain as I see you now, gentles, a-lying upon a rock, calling for a drop of water to cool his tongue, like Dives to the torment! Oh! dear me!” and the old dame wept bitterly.

“There is a rose noble for you!” said Mrs. Leigh.

“And there another!” said Sir Richard. And in a few minutes four or five gold coins were in her hand. But the old dame did but look wonderingly at the gold a moment, and then—

“Ah! dear gentles, God’s blessing on you, and Mr. Cary’s mighty good to me already; but gold won’t buy back childer! O! young gentleman! young gentleman! make me a promise; if you want God’s blessing on you this day, bring me back my boy, if you find him sailing on the seas! Bring him back, and an old widow’s blessing be on you!”

Amyas promised—what else could he do?—and the group hurried on; but the lad’s heart was heavy in the midst of joy, with the thought of John Oxenham, as he walked through the churchyard, and down the short street which led between the ancient school and still more ancient town-house, to the head of the long bridge, across which the pageant, having arranged “east-the-water,” was to defile, and then turn to the right along the quay.

However, he was bound in all courtesy to turn his attention now to the show which had been prepared in his honor, and which was really well enough worth seeing and hearing. The English were, in those days, an altogether dramatic people; ready and able, as in Bideford that day, to extemporize a pageant, a masque, or any effort of the Thespian art short of the regular drama. For they were, in the first place, even down to the very poorest, a well-fed people, with fewer luxuries than we, but more abundant necessaries; and while beef, ale, and good woollen clothes could be obtained in plenty, without overworking either body or soul, men had time to amuse themselves in something more intellectual than mere toping in pot-houses. Moreover, the half century after the Reformation in England was one not merely of new intellectual freedom, but of immense animal good spirits. After years of dumb confusion and cruel persecution, a breathing time had come: Mary and the fires of Smithfield had vanished together like a hideous dream, and the mighty shout of joy which greeted Elizabeth’s entry into London, was the key-note of fifty glorious years; the expression of a new-found strength and freedom, which vented itself at home in drama and in song; abroad in mighty conquests, achieved with the laughing recklessness of boys at play.

So first, preceded by the waits, came along the bridge toward the town-hall a device prepared by the good rector, who, standing by, acted as showman, and explained anxiously to the bystanders the import of a certain “allegory” wherein on a great banner was depicted Queen Elizabeth herself, who, in ample ruff and farthingale, a Bible in one hand and a sword in the other, stood triumphant upon the necks of two sufficiently abject personages, whose triple tiara and imperial crown proclaimed them the Pope and the King of Spain; while a label, issuing from her royal mouth, informed the world that—

 

“By land and sea a virgin queen I reign, And spurn to dust both Antichrist and Spain.”

 

Which, having been received with due applause, a well-bedizened lad, having in his cap as a posy “Loyalty,” stepped forward, and delivered himself of the following verses:—

 

“Oh, great Eliza! oh, world-famous crew! Which shall I hail more blest, your queen or you? While without other either falls to wrack, And light must eyes, or eyes their light must lack. She without you, a diamond sunk in mine, Its worth unprized, to self alone must shine; You without her, like hands bereft of head, Like Ajax rage, by blindfold lust misled. She light, you eyes; she head, and you the hands, In fair proportion knit by heavenly hands; Servants in queen, and queen in servants blest; Your only glory, how to serve her best; And hers how best the adventurous might to guide, Which knows no check of foemen, wind, or tide, So fair Eliza’s spotless fame may fly Triumphant round the globe, and shake th’ astounded sky!”

 

With which sufficiently bad verses Loyalty passed on, while my Lady Bath hinted to Sir Richard, not without reason, that the poet, in trying to exalt both parties, had very sufficiently snubbed both, and intimated that it was “hardly safe for country wits to attempt that euphuistic, antithetical, and delicately conceited vein, whose proper fountain was in Whitehall.” However, on went Loyalty, very well pleased with himself, and next, amid much cheering, two great tinsel fish, a salmon and a trout, symbolical of the wealth of Torridge, waddled along, by means of two human legs and a staff apiece, which protruded from the fishes’ stomachs. They drew (or seemed to draw, for half the ‘prentices in the town were shoving it behind, and cheering on the panting monarchs of the flood) a car wherein sate, amid reeds and river-flags, three or four pretty girls in robes of gray-blue spangled with gold, their heads wreathed one with a crown of the sweet bog-myrtle, another with hops and white convolvulus, the third with pale heather and golden fern. They stopped opposite Amyas; and she of the myrtle wreath, rising and bowing to him and the company, began with a pretty blush to say her say:—

 

“Hither from my moorland home, Nymph of Torridge, proud I come; Leaving fen and furzy brake, Haunt of eft and spotted snake, Where to fill mine urns I use, Daily with Atlantic dews; While beside the reedy flood Wild duck leads her paddling brood. For this morn, as Phoebus gay Chased through heaven the night mist gray, Close beside me, prankt in pride, Sister Tamar rose, and cried, ‘Sluggard, up! ‘Tis holiday, In the lowlands far away. Hark! how jocund Plymouth bells, Wandering up through mazy dells, Call me down, with smiles to hail, My daring Drake’s returning sail.’ ‘Thine alone?’ I answer’d. ‘Nay; Mine as well the joy to-day. Heroes train’d on Northern wave, To that Argo new I gave; Lent to thee, they roam’d the main; Give me, nymph, my sons again.’ ‘Go, they wait Thee,’ Tamar cried, Southward bounding from my side. Glad I rose, and at my call, Came my Naiads, one and all. Nursling of the mountain sky, Leaving Dian’s choir on high, Down her cataracts laughing loud, Ockment leapt from crag and cloud, Leading many a nymph, who dwells Where wild deer drink in ferny dells; While the Oreads as they past Peep’d from Druid Tors aghast. By alder copses sliding slow, Knee-deep in flowers came gentler Yeo And paused awhile her locks to twine With musky hops and white woodbine, Then joined the silver-footed band, Which circled down my golden sand, By dappled park, and harbor shady, Haunt of lovelorn knight and lady, My thrice-renowned sons to greet, With rustic song and pageant meet. For joy! the girdled robe around Eliza’s name henceforth shall sound, Whose venturous fleets to conquest start, Where ended once the seaman’s chart, While circling Sol his steps shall count Henceforth from Thule’s western mount, And lead new rulers round the seas From furthest Cassiterides. For found is now the golden tree, Solv’d th’ Atlantic mystery, Pluck’d the dragon-guarded fruit; While around the charmed root, Wailing loud, the Hesperids Watch their warder’s drooping lids. Low he lies with grisly wound, While the sorceress triple-crown’d In her scarlet robe doth shield him, Till her cunning spells have heal’d him. Ye, meanwhile, around the earth Bear the prize of manful worth. Yet a nobler meed than gold Waits for Albion’s children bold; Great Eliza’s virgin hand Welcomes you to Fairyland, While your native Naiads bring Native wreaths as offering. Simple though their show may be, Britain’s worship in them see. ‘Tis not price, nor outward fairness,