Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley (christmas read aloud .txt) 📕

“Oh, bathos!” said Lady Bath, while the ‘prentices shouted applause. “Is this hedge-bantling to be fathered on you, Mr. Frank?”

“It is necessary, by all laws of the drama, madam,” said Frank, with a sly smile, “that the speech and the speaker shall fit each other. Pass on, Earl Ordulf; a more learned worthy waits.”

Whereon, up came a fresh member of the procession; namely, no less a person than Vindex Brimblecombe, the ancient schoolmaster, with five-and-forty boys at his heels, who halting, pulled out his spectacles, and thus signified his forgiveness of his whilom broken head:—

“That the world should have been circumnavigated, ladies and gentles, were matter enough of jubilation to the student of Herodotus and Plato, Plinius and –- ahem! much more when the circumnavigators are Britons; more, again, when Damnonians.”

“Don’t swear, master,” said young Will Cary.

“Gulielme Cary, Gulielme Cary, hast thou forgotten thy—”

“Whippings? Never, old lad! Go on; but let not the license of the scholar overtop the modesty of the Christian.”

“More again, as I said, when, incolae, inhabitants of Devon; but, most of all, men of Bideford school. Oh renowned school! Oh schoolboys ennobled by fellowship with him! Oh most happy pedagogue, to whom it has befallen to have chastised a circumnavigator, and, like another Chiron, trained another Hercules: yet more than Hercules, for he placed his pillars on the ocean shore, and then returned; but my scholar’s voyage—”

“Hark how the old fox is praising himself all along on the sly,” said Cary.

“Mr. William, Mr. william, peace;—silentium, my graceless pupil. Urge the foaming steed, and strike terror into the rapid stag, but meddle not with matters too high for thee.”

“He has given you the dor now, sir,” said Lady Bath; “let the old man say his say.”

“I bring, therefore, as my small contribution to this day’s feast; first a Latin epigram, as thus—”

“Latin? Let us hear it forthwith,” cried my lady.

And the old pedant mouthed out—

“Torriguiam Tamaris ne spernat; Leighius addet Mox terras terris, inclyte Drake, tuis.”

“Neat, i’ faith, la!” Whereon all the rest, as in duty bound, approved also.

“This for the erudite: for vulgar ears the vernacular is more consonant, sympathetic, instructive; as thus:—

“Famed Argo ship, that noble chip, by doughty Jason’s steering, Brought back to Greece the golden fleece, from Colchis home careering; But now her fame is put to shame, while new Devonian Argo, Round earth doth run in wake of sun, and brings wealthier cargo.”

“Runs with a right fa-lal-la,” observed Cary; “and would go nobly to a fiddle and a big drum.”

“Ye Spaniards, quake! our doughty Drake a royal swan is tested, On wing and oar, from shore to shore, the raging main who breasted:— But never needs to chant his deeds, like swan that lies a-dying, So far his name, by trump of fame, around the sphere is flying.”

“Hillo ho! schoolmaster!” shouted a voice from behind; “move on, and make way for Father Neptune!” Whereon a whole storm of raillery fell upon the hapless pedagogue.

“We waited for the parson’s alligator, but we wain’t for yourn.”

“Allegory! my children, allegory!” shrieked the man of letters.

“What do ye call he an alligator for? He is but a poor little starved evat!”

“Out of the road, old Custis! March on, Don Palmado!”

These allusions to the usual instrument of torture in Westcountry schools made the old gentleman wince; especially when they were followed home by—

“Who stole Admiral Grenville’s brooms, because birch rods were dear?”

But proudly he shook his bald head, as a bull shakes off the flies, and returned to the charge once more.

“Great Alexander, famed commander, wept and made a pother, At conquering only half the world, but Drake had conquer’d t’other; And Hercules to brink of seas!—”

“Oh—!”

And clapping both hands to the back of his neck, the schoolmaster began dancing frantically about, while his boys broke out tittering, “O! the ochidore! look to the blue ochidore! Who’ve put ochidore to maister’s poll!”

It was too true: neatly inserted, as he stooped forward, between his neck and his collar, was a large live shore-crab, holding on tight with both hands.

“Gentles! good Christians! save me! I am mare-rode! Incubo, vel ab incubo, opprimor! Satanas has me by the poll! Help! he tears my jugular; he wrings my neck, as he does to Dr. Faustus in the play. Confiteor!—I confess! Satan, I defy thee! Good people, I confess! [Greek text]! The truth will out. Mr. Francis Leigh wrote the epigram!” And diving through the crowd, the pedagogue vanished howling, while Father Neptune, crowned with sea-weeds, a trident in one hand, and a live dog-fish in the other, swaggered up the street surrounded by a tall bodyguard of mariners, and followed by a great banner, on which was depicted a globe, with Drake’s ship sailing thereon upside down, and overwritten—

“See every man the Pelican, Which round the world did go, While her stern-post was uppermost, And topmasts down below. And by the way she lost a day, Out of her log was stole: But Neptune kind, with favoring wind, Hath brought her safe and whole.”

“Now, lads!” cried Neptune; “hand me my parable that’s writ for me, and here goeth!”

And at the top of his bull-voice, he began roaring—

“I am King Neptune bold, The ruler of the seas I don’t understand much singing upon land, But I hope what I say will please.

“Here be five Bideford men, Which have sail’d the world around, And I watch’d them well, as they all can tell, And brought them home safe and sound.

“For it is the men of Devon. To see them I take delight, Both to tack and to hull, and to heave and to pull, And to prove themselves in fight.

“Where be those Spaniards proud, That make their valiant boasts; And think for to keep the poor Indians for their sheep, And to farm my golden coasts?

“‘Twas the devil and the Pope gave them My kingdom for their own: But my nephew Francis Drake, he caused them to quake, And he pick’d them to the bone.

“For the sea my realm it is, As good Queen Bess’s is the land; So freely come again, all merry Devon men, And there’s old Neptune’s hand.”

“Holla, boys! holla! Blow up, Triton, and bring forward the freedom of the seas.”

Triton, roaring through a conch, brought forward a cockleshell full of salt-water, and delivered it solemnly to Amyas, who, of course, put a noble into it, and returned it after Grenville had done the same.

“Holla, Dick Admiral!” cried neptune, who was pretty far gone in liquor; “we knew thou hadst a right English heart in thee, for all thou standest there as taut as a Don who has swallowed his rapier.”

“Grammercy, stop thy bellowing, fellow, and on; for thou smellest vilely of fish.”

“Everything smells sweet in its right place. I’m going home.”

“I thought thou wert there all along, being already half-seas over,” said Cary.

“Ay, right Upsee-Dutch; and that’s more than thou ever wilt be, thou ‘longshore stay-at-home. Why wast making sheep’s eyes at Mistress Salterne here, while my pretty little chuck of Burrough there was playing at shove-groat with Spanish doubloons?”

“Go to the devil, sirrah!” said Cary. Neptune had touched on a sore subject; and more cheeks than Amyas Leigh’s reddened at the hint.

“Amen, if Heaven so please!” and on rolled the monarch of the seas; and so the pageant ended.

The moment Amyas had an opportunity, he asked his brother Frank, somewhat peevishly, where Rose Salterne was.

“What! the mayor’s daughter? With her uncle by Kilkhampton, I believe.”

Now cunning Master Frank, whose daily wish was to “seek peace and ensue it,” told Amyas this, because he must needs speak the truth: but he was purposed at the same time to speak as little truth as he could, for fear of accidents; and, therefore, omitted to tell his brother how that he, two days before, had entreated Rose Salterne herself to appear as the nymph of Torridge; which honor she, who had no objection either to exhibit her pretty face, to recite pretty poetry, or to be trained thereto by the cynosure of North Devon, would have assented willingly, but that her father stopped the pretty project by a peremptory countermove, and packed her off, in spite of her tears, to the said uncle on the Atlantic cliffs; after which he went up to Burrough, and laughed over the whole matter with Mrs. Leigh.

“I am but a burgher, Mrs. Leigh, and you a lady of blood; but I am too proud to let any man say that Simon Salterne threw his daughter at your son’s head;—no; not if you were an empress!”

“And to speak truth, Mr. Salterne, there are young gallants enough in the country quarrelling about her pretty face every day, without making her a tourney-queen to tilt about.”

Which was very true; for during the three years of Amyas’s absence, Rose Salterne had grown into so beautiful a girl of eighteen, that half North Devon was mad about the “Rose of Torridge,” as she was called; and there was not a young gallant for ten miles round (not to speak of her father’s clerks and ‘prentices, who moped about after her like so many Malvolios, and treasured up the very parings of her nails) who would not have gone to Jerusalem to win her. So that all along the vales of Torridge and of Taw, and even away to Clovelly (for young Mr. Cary was one of the sick), not a gay bachelor but was frowning on his fellows, and vying with them in the fashion of his clothes, the set of his ruffs, the harness of his horse, the carriage of his hawks, the pattern of his sword-hilt; and those were golden days for all tailors and armorers, from Exmoor to Okehampton town. But of all those foolish young lads not one would speak to the other, either out hunting, or at the archery butts, or in the tilt-yard; and my Lady Bath (who confessed that there was no use in bringing out her daughters where Rose Salterne was in the way) prophesied in her classical fashion that Rose’s wedding bid fair to be a very bridal of Atalanta, and feast of the Lapithae; and poor Mr. Will Cary (who always blurted out the truth), when old Salterne once asked him angrily in Bideford Market, “What a plague business had he making sheep’s eyes at his daughter?” broke out before all bystanders, “And what a plague business had you, old boy, to throw such an apple of discord into our merry meetings hereabouts? If you choose to have such a daughter, you must take the consequences, and be hanged to you.” To which Mr. Salterne answered with some truth, “That she was none of his choosing, nor of Mr. Cary’s neither.” And so the dor being given, the belligerents parted laughing, but the war remained in statu quo; and not a week passed but, by mysterious hands, some nosegay, or languishing sonnet, was conveyed into The Rose’s chamber, all which she stowed away, with the simplicity of a country girl, finding it mighty pleasant; and took all compliments quietly enough, probably because, on the authority of her mirror, she considered them no more than her due.

And now, to add to the general confusion, home was come young Amyas Leigh, more desperately in love with her than ever. For, as is the way with sailors (who after all are the truest lovers, as they are the finest fellows, God bless them, upon earth), his lonely ship-watches had been spent in imprinting on his imagination, month after month, year after year, every feature and gesture