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

“Ayacanora’s heart is warm; she does not think about cold.”

“Warm? perhaps you will warm my heart for me, then.”

“Would God I could do it, mother!” said Amyas, half reproachfully.

Mrs. Leigh looked up in his face, and burst into a violent flood of tears.

“Sinful! sinful that I am!”

“Blessed creature!” cried Amyas, “if you speak so I shall go mad. Mother, mother, I have been dreading this meeting for months. It has been a nightmare hanging over me like a horrible black thundercloud; a great cliff miles high, with its top hid in the clouds, which I had to climb, and dare not. I have longed to leap overboard, and flee from it like a coward into the depths of the sea.—The thought that you might ask me whether I was not my brother’s keeper—that you might require his blood at my hands—and now, now! when it comes! to find you all love, and trust, and patience—mother, mother, it’s more than I can bear!” and he wept violently.

Mrs. Leigh knew enough of Amyas to know that any burst of this kind, from his quiet nature, betokened some very fearful struggle; and the loving creature forgot everything instantly, in the one desire to soothe him.

And soothe him she did; and home the two went, arm in arm together, while Ayacanora held fast, like a child, by the skirt of Mrs. Leigh’s cloak. The self-help and daring of the forest nymph had given place to the trembling modesty of the young girl, suddenly cast on shore in a new world, among strange faces, strange hopes, and strange fears also.

“Will your mother love me?” whispered she to Amyas, as she went in.

“Yes; but you must do what she tells you.”

Ayacanora pouted.

“She will laugh at me, because I am wild.”

“She never laughs at any one.”

“Humph! ” said Ayacanora. “Well, I shall not be afraid of her. I thought she would have been tall like you; but she is not even as big as me.”

This hardly sounded hopeful for the prospect of Ayacanora’s obedience; but ere twenty-four hours had passed, Mrs. Leigh had won her over utterly; and she explained her own speech by saying that she thought so great a man ought to have a great mother. She had expected, poor thing, in her simplicity, some awful princess with a frown like Juno’s own, and found instead a healing angel.

Her story was soon told to Mrs. Leigh, who of course, woman-like, would not allow a doubt as to her identity. And the sweet mother never imprinted a prouder or fonder kiss upon her son’s forehead, than that with which she repaid his simple declaration, that he had kept unspotted, like a gentleman and a Christian, the soul which God had put into his charge.

“Then you have forgiven me, mother?”

“Years ago I said in this same room, what should I render to the Lord for having given me two such sons? And in this room I say it once again. Tell me all about my other son, that I may honor him as I honor you.”

And then, with the iron nerve which good women have, she made him give her every detail of Lucy Passmore’s story and of all which had happened from the day of their sailing to that luckless night at Guayra. And when it was done, she led Ayacanora out, and began busying herself about the girl’s comforts, as calmly as if Frank and Amyas had been sleeping in their cribs in the next room.

But she had hardly gone upstairs, when a loud knock at the door was followed by its opening hastily; and into the hall burst, regardless of etiquette, the tall and stately figure of Sir Richard Grenville.

Amyas dropped on his knees instinctively. The stern warrior was quite unmanned; and as he bent over his godson, a tear dropped from that iron cheek, upon the iron cheek of Amyas Leigh.

“My lad! my glorious lad! and where have you been? Get up, and tell me all. The sailors told me a little, but I must hear every word. I knew you would do something grand. I told your mother you were too good a workman for God to throw away. Now, let me have the whole story. Why, I am out of breath! To tell truth, I ran three-parts of the way hither.”

And down the two sat, and Amyas talked long into the night; while Sir Richard, his usual stateliness recovered, smiled stern approval at each deed of daring; and when all was ended, answered with something like a sigh:

“Would God that I had been with you every step! Would God, at least, that I could show as good a three-years’ log-book, Amyas, my lad!”

“You can show a better one, I doubt not.”

“Humph! With the exception of one paltry Spanish prize, I don’t know that the queen is the better, or her enemies the worse, for me, since we parted last in Dublin city.”

“You are too modest, sir.”

“Would that I were; but I got on in Ireland, I found, no better than my neighbors; and so came home again, to find that while I had been wasting my time in that land of misrule, Raleigh had done a deed to which I can see no end. For, lad, he has found (or rather his two captains, Amadas and Barlow, have found for him) between Florida and Newfoundland, a country, the like of which, I believe, there is not on the earth for climate and fertility. Whether there be gold there, I know not, and it matters little; for there is all else on earth that man can want; furs, timber, rivers, game, sugar-canes, corn, fruit, and every commodity which France, Spain, or Italy can yield, wild in abundance; the savages civil enough for savages, and, in a word, all which goes to the making of as noble a jewel as her majesty’s crown can wear. The people call it Wingandacoa; but we, after her majesty, Virginia.”

“You have been there, then?”

“The year before last, lad; and left there Ralf Lane, Amadas, and some twenty gentlemen, and ninety men, and, moreover, some money of my own, and some of old Will Salterne’s, which neither of us will ever see again. For the colony, I know not how, quarrelled with the Indians (I fear I too was over-sharp with some of them for stealing—if I was, God forgive me!), and could not, forsooth, keep themselves alive for twelve months; so that Drake, coming back from his last West Indian voyage, after giving them all the help he could, had to bring the whole party home. And if you will believe it, the faint-hearted fellows had not been gone a fortnight, before I was back again with three ships and all that they could want. And never was I more wroth in my life, when all I found was the ruins of their huts, which (so rich is the growth there) were already full of great melons, and wild deer feeding thereon—a pretty sight enough, but not what I wanted just then. So back I came; and being in no overgood temper, vented my humors on the Portugals at the Azores, and had hard fights and small booty. So there the matter stands, but not for long; for shame it were if such a paradise, once found by Britons, should fall into the hands of any but her majesty; and we will try again this spring, if men and money can be found. Eh, lad?”

“But the prize?”

“Ah! that was no small make-weight to our disasters, after all. I sighted her for six days’ sail from the American coast: but ere we could lay her aboard it fell dead calm. Never a boat had I on board—they were all lost in a gale of wind—and the other ships were becalmed two leagues astern of me. There was no use lying there and pounding her till she sank; so I called the carpenter, got up all the old chests, and with them and some spars we floated ourselves alongside, and only just in time. For the last of us had hardly scrambled up into the chains, when our crazy Noah’s ark went all aboard, and sank at the side, so that if we had been minded to run away, Amyas, we could not; whereon, judging valor to be the better part of discretion (as I usually do), we fell to with our swords and had her in five minutes, and fifty thousand pounds’ worth in her, which set up my purse again, and Raleigh’s too, though I fear it has run out again since as fast as it ran in.”

And so ended Sir Richard’s story.

Amyas went the next day to Salterne, and told his tale. The old man had heard the outlines of it already: but he calmly bade him sit down, and listened to all, his chin upon his hand, his elbows on his knees. His cheek never blanched, his lips never quivered throughout. Only when Amyas came to Rose’s marriage, he heaved a long breath, as if a weight was taken off his heart.

“Say that again, sir!”

Amyas said it again, and then went on; faltering, he hinted at the manner of her death.

“Go on, sir! Why are you afraid? There is nothing to be ashamed of there, is there?”

Amyas told the whole with downcast eyes, and then stole a look at his hearer’s face. There was no sign of emotion: only somewhat of a proud smile curled the corners of that iron mouth.

“And her husband?” asked he, after a pause.

“I am ashamed to have to tell you, sir, that the man still lives.”

“Still lives, sir?”

“Too true, as far as I know. That it was not my fault, my story bears me witness.”

“Sir, I never doubted your will to kill him. Still lives, you say? Well, so do rats and adders. And now, I suppose, Captain Leigh, your worship is minded to recruit yourself on shore a while with the fair lass whom you have brought home (as I hear) before having another dash at the devil and his kin!”

“Do not mention that young lady’s name with mine, sir; she is no more to me than she is to you; for she has Spanish blood in her veins.”

Salterne smiled grimly.

“But I am minded at least to do one thing, Mr. Salterne, and that is, to kill Spaniards, in fair fight, by land and sea, wheresoever I shall meet them. And, therefore, I stay not long here, whithersoever I may be bound next.”

“Well, sir, when you start, come to me for a ship, and the best I have is at your service; and, if she do not suit, command her to be fitted as you like best; and I, William Salterne, will pay for all which you shall command to be done.”

“My good sir, I have accounts to square with you after a very different fashion. As part-adventurer in the Rose, I have to deliver to you your share of the treasure which I have brought home.”

“My share, sir? If I understood you, my ship was lost off the coast of the Caracas three years agone, and this treasure was all won since?”

“True; but you, as an adventurer in the expedition, have a just claim for your share, and will receive it.”

“Captain Leigh, you are, I see, as your father was before you, a just and upright Christian man: but, sir, this money is none of mine, for it was won in no ship of mine.—Hear me, sir! And if it had been, and that ship”—(he could not speak her name)—“lay safe and sound now by Bideford