For God and Gold

by Julian Stafford Corbett

CHAPTER XVI

It was arranged that I should go out as gentleman adventurer; and since I did not wish to be without place, and had some little knowledge of business, gained by always managing my own estate so as to make it yield the fullest return, I begged and got the office of merchant to the expedition.

I was soon tried in my new post, for Frank was earnest to get back to Plymouth to speed the fitting out of the ships and the building of the pinnaces, which we were to carry with us in pieces. So I was left to purchase the arms and other furniture which was still lacking. This had been the only occasion of his staying in London, which being left in my hands he was free to depart, and this he accordingly did, taking Mr. Oxenham with him.

From my constant fear of meeting Harry, which was greater than ever since I had resolved to fly, I stirred abroad no more than my business demanded.

Yet I was obliged often to go into the city, for there was still a great deal to be done. Money was in no way lacking, both by reason of the success of Frank's two former voyages, which had lined his pockets well, and of the support he got elsewhere. Nothing was to be wanting from the complete furniture of a man-of-war in either ship; and our captain, who, both on his person and his ship, would always have the best, had furnished me with a long schedule of muskets, calivers, targets, pikes, partisans, bows, and artificers' tools, as well as cloth and other provision for a whole year, all of which things I was bidden to purchase of different merchants as far as possible, that no wind of our preparations should be blown into the Spanish ambassador's ears.

Such time as I was not thus engaged I spent very profitably in Signor Rocco's new College of Fence in Warwick Lane. I had learned that Harry did not resort thither, so, since it was near my lodging, I was able to enjoy my best-loved pastime and see much excellent rapier-play that was new to me, whereby the pain of my delay in London was a little eased.

Thus by avoiding other public places, and above all Paul's, at the end of a fortnight I found my work complete without the meeting I dreaded; and with a lighter heart than I had borne for many a day I took ship at Radcliffe with all my lading, and so came to Plymouth after a slow passage on the afternoon of Friday, the 23d of May.

The three brothers, for Joseph Drake was of the expedition as well as John, received me with open arms, and much commended my pains when the arms and furniture came to be stowed on board. They informed me that as merchant I was to sail in the admiral with Frank, of which I was very glad.

PLYMOUTH

It seemed that everything was prepared, and that, as they had only stayed for my coming, we were to weigh on the morrow. Nothing could have been more to my mind. So eager was I to leave my old life behind that I hardly accepted their invitation to go ashore to gather the men who were yet to come aboard. Yet I did at last for good-fellowship, and started with them to the sound of a demi-culverin and a flourish of our trumpets, for a signal to the mariners to embark.

As we rowed I saw another boat making for the Swan, which lay a good way from the Pasha. They hailed us as we passed, so that I knew they were some of our company; but I could not notice them much, for Frank just then took occasion to point out Mount Edgcombe to me and I looked the other way.

Our passage from tavern to tavern to beat up the stragglers was like a triumph. Indeed I think Plymouth was then, and maybe still is, flat drunk with the western wine. A crowd followed on our heels, cheering us as we went; the citizens came out from their suppers to pledge us lustily with brimming tankards; and as for smiles of hostesses and wenches in the taverns I had enough showered on myself alone, being a gentleman adventurer in the expedition, as would wellnigh satisfy a regiment of horse a whole campaign, as such things go now.

What with these oglings and smirkings of the pretty Plymouth lasses and our constant pledgings, I could have been as jolly as any piece of tar-yarn there had it not been for the grievous sights I saw, and our pain therefrom in getting our men aboard, though I think a very willing crew.

Most had pledged once or twice too often, and were for ever taking leave and never departing; some could not have gone if they had been willing, at least not on their own legs; others were in pledge, for commodities they had never seen, to cogging hosts, who held their boots or sword or breeches as security. Some even we could by no means come at, save by help of a magistrate's warrant to search some dishonest alehouse.

Frank told me what I saw was of no account by the side of what sometimes happened.

'Why, lad,' said he, 'I have known it take two days and all the magistrates in the borough to gather a company, and then not see it done. Nay, it is not an unheard-of thing for this scandal to be the utter overthrow of a voyage, and general undoing of owners, victuallers, and company. Mine are all picked lads, or you should not have seen us come off so easily.'

'I marvel,' said I, and I still do, 'that some among our great lord-admirals have not taken order to end these things, which seem a great scandal to the reputation of our sea-service no less than an injury to the commonwealth, and ought to be reformed.'

'That is well enough,' answered Frank, 'and much to be wished; but to keep a mariner at such times from his ale is a thing more lightly attempted than easily accomplished.'

Mr. Oxenham was little help to us. Indeed he had so many pouting lips to kiss in this his own fair town of Plymouth, and so many dainty waists to encircle, that I began to think nothing but a warrant or a file of pikes would ever get him aboard.

Still it was done at last, and the sun rose gloriously next morning upon us with our company complete. It was Whitsunday Eve, and the whole town seemed to have made holiday to bid us God-speed that sunny May morning.

It was a fair sight to see the hills around in their fresh spring garb crowding down to the harbour, which seemed to spread out its shining arms to embrace them. The Hoe was thronged with a great mass of people in their gayest clothes; every point beside was bright with colour, and a score of small fry were cleaving the clear waters about us.

We stood off and on awhile to give them a good sight of us, and bid the fair town 'Farewell' with our great pieces and our music. I think Frank was very proud of his ships, and well he might be, for never can have been a smarter sight in Plymouth harbour than we were that day as we beat to and fro with our great flags of St. George at the main-tops, and our silk streamers down to the blue water, and now and again a white puff from our castles as we answered the ordnance from the platform saluting us.

Cheer after cheer went up from the shore folk between each discharge till we could no longer hear them, and stood out to sea, fairly started at last on that most memorable adventure. I say memorable, for surely never was so great a service undertaken with so small a power. We were, men and boys, all told, but seventy-three souls, being forty-seven in the admiral and twenty-six in the vice-admiral, under John Drake, and only one of us all that was not under thirty.

The wind was very favourable at north-east, and we stood on all that day and next night. In the morning when I came on deck I found we were going under easy sail, only a cable's length from our vice-admiral. A boat was towing alongside of us, and I saw that some one must have come aboard from the Swan.

I went aft to our captain's cabin to see what it might mean. I knocked at the door. Frank's cheery voice bade me enter. I opened and went in. Heaven save me from such a moment again! My heart stood still, my brain swam, for there beside Frank sat Harry, with Sergeant Culverin at his back!

He sprang to his feet as I shut the door behind me, and stood glaring at me with his hand on his rapier.

'Sit down, Harry!' cried Frank; 'I will have no brawling here.'

Harry took no notice, but stood with his breath coming very fast and hard just as before.

'Sit down, sir,' thundered our captain; 'wilt mutiny in my own cabin? Hark ye, sir, on my ship there is no difference between a gentleman and a cook's boy when it comes to giving orders. Sit down now, and take your hand from that weapon, or I shall presently take order to have you in irons.'

'You are right, Frank, quite right,' said Harry with an effort as he slowly sat himself down. 'But how can you have done us this unkindness?'

'Frank, Frank,' said I, finding voice at last, 'you know not what you have done.' With that I tottered to the seat on the opposite side of the table to Harry. I felt undone and crushed. My long grieving and much brooding on my shame had told on me more than I guessed. And now to find after my cowardly flight I had fallen into a trap a hundredfold more dreadful than that I had sought to escape, to find my new hopes shattered at a blow and this awful trial before me, was more than I could bear, and in utter broken despair I buried my face in my arms upon the table to hide my tears.

'I know well enough what I have done,' said Frank, after he had left us thus in silence for some moments. 'Do you think that when two good lads, fast friends, come to me each separately from the side of one fair lady, haggard and woe-begone, and tell me that they want to journey they care not whither, so long as it be far from England, do you think then I know not what it means? Why, man, I have a score such aboard now. For though many think that the greater the thief and blasphemer the better the soldier, yet say I for my work give me, next to him who sails for love of God, the honest lad that sails for love of a lass. As I judge they are half and half aboard our ships now. So think you I could not read the old tale, when I saw it writ so plain? And had it not been so, I should yet have known; for there comes to me an honest worthy soldier who knew better than I.

'"Captain Drake," says he, "here is a mighty storm blowing between two valiant gentlemen, who after long and loving consort have parted company, so that they cannot come together again without most nice navigation. I pray you take command," says he.

'"How do they bear, Sergeant?" says I.

'"Cry you mercy there, captain," says he; "I am no pilot of gentlemen's quarrels, yet I can give you certain just observations, whence peradventure you may take their bearings yourself."'

Therewith Frank repeated the whole story as he had it from the Sergeant, till he came to Harry's flight from the inn. Then in a low earnest voice he told clearly, as though it were passing before his eyes, what the Sergeant had seen me do outside with Harry's rapier. I felt so shamed to hear it now that I would have stayed him, but felt I could not speak.

'So, gentlemen,' said our captain, when he ended the tale,' I knew it was a quarrel that might be healed, and knew nothing more sovereign in such a case than the lusty sea. I have known many so healed, when they get far away and see what a little thing it is they wrestled for, beside the prizes a brave lad can win over sea. That is what I have done, and I know I am right; and if you be true men, I would have you shake hands before you leave this cabin.'

The sound of Harry's hard breathing had ceased as Frank got on with his tale, and since he described the scene in the inn-yard I felt my brother's eyes had been fixed upon me. Now I heard him rise, and felt his hand laid upon my shoulder.

'Poor lad,' said he very gently, 'poor lad! what fearful suffering, what a terrible war must have been in your good heart! Why did I not know it and help you to victory? You have won alone. I know it now, but God forgive me, with what carnage of your soul, which but for my folly I could have stayed. We have both sinned, and grievously we have both been punished; let us now lay down the scourge.'

I looked up, hardly daring to face him. Yet when I saw his look was filled with pity I took courage. Rising to my feet I took his hands and pressed them hard, but I could not speak. So putting his arm through mine, he led me to the door.

'Come,' said he, 'we will go talk together. While our captain finishes writing his instructions we will try to instruct each other how best to show ourselves worthy of her.'

I think we both went out very humbled. Not only because Frank had so imperiously bent us to his will and shown us what children we were beside him, but also because he had compared us to the love-sick boys of the crew, and our story to their love squabbles. Yet how could we deny it was different? It was indeed hard to confess how little different it was, and, as I say, we both went out with our pride, the mainstay of quarrels, much humbled.

We had both, I know, tried honestly that our quarrel should end here, yet was the rent too wide and deep to be mended so easily. His arm seemed to sit uneasily in mine, and ere we had gone a few paces he took some excuse of a point coming untied to draw it away.

Like strangers at last we sat down and tried to talk, but it was very difficult. I would have given my tongue to have gone on with the tale where Frank ended, and to have told Harry how I had seen his dear wife mourning over her child for his loss. Yet half from shame to confess I had gone back to Ashtead, and half in fear of adding to his grief by telling him what abiding love he had left, I held my peace, and we fell to talking in false notes about the voyage, till, to our great relief, Harry was summoned to Frank's cabin to receive his orders for Captain John Drake. As soon as I was alone Sergeant Culverin came up to me with his elaborate salute.

'I trust you will forgive my freedom, your worship,' said he.

'Forgive, Sergeant!' I answered. 'I have nothing to forgive; I have only thanks for the good work you have done.'

'Nay,' said he, 'I did nothing; no more than that astrolabe with which Mr. Oxenham yonder is taking our position. I was but a poor instrument for Captain Drake to shape your courses withal.'

'Still I must thank you, Sergeant, from my heart.'

'I pray you, sir, if you love me, say no more. Let us pass to other things. How does this most uncivil motion sort with your worship's stomach?'

'Well enough, Sergeant; does it quarrel with yours?' I asked, for he looked a little pale.

'To be plain with you, sir, the sea and I are not so good friends as we hope to become. Last night was most evil to me in yonder fly-boat—Swan, they call it; yet for liveliness Sparrow would sort better with its nature. There was, moreover, a mariner of the watch who would increase my load by singing continually a most woeful, ancient ballad of pilgrims at sea. Thus it ran, sir:—

'"Thus meanwhile the pilgrims lie,
And have their bowlies fast them by,
And cry after hot Malvoisie,
Their health for to restore.
And some would have a salted toast,
For they might eat nor sodden nor roast;
A man might soon pay for their cost
As for one day or twain."

And more very sickly stuff to like intent, sir, to a very doleful tune.'

'I fear, Sergeant,' said I, 'your voyage to the Indies will not be as pleasant as you could desire.'

'Indeed, sir,' said he, 'I wish we could fetch thither a-horseback, being, as I think, the only honourable manner of going for gentlemen. Still, since it has pleased God to put this shifty, rude, uncourtly sea betwixt us and the Indies, we must e'en make shift with a ship.'

'I am sorry for you, Sergeant,' I answered. 'A horse indeed would have been a conveyance you better understood.'

'Well, it is not so much that,' said the Sergeant. 'For when I was sergeant-groom under the Signor John Peter Pugliano, esquire of the Emperor's stables, the word always went that a man who could manage a horse could manage anything, save it were a woman, by your worship's leave. So I think a ship will not come amiss to me, being in relation to a horse but a wet lifeless thing.'

'But yet, Sergeant,' said I, 'of a wholly different nature.'

'I know not that, sir,' said he. 'The ancients were wiser than we in these matters, saving your worship's learning, and, as I have been told, placed amongst their ensigns military the horse, as being sacred to the god Neptune as well as to Mars, and the symbol of immoderate fury of attack on sea as well as on land. Moreover in your tilting of one ship against another you have an image or imitation of the crowning glory of horsemanship.'

'But we English do not use this method,' I answered, 'and hold it only fit for Turks and Spaniards, and such like, who, having no skill in sailing and seamanship, are compelled to use galleys propelled with oars.'

'Mass!' said Culverin, 'had I known that I should have sailed even less willingly than I did. What you say may be right, yet I hold that to sail with a lance at your bows is the more honourable and soldierly method. But let that pass. Doubtless by further contemplation I shall discover further similitudes between the horse and the ship. Since I hear what you say, sir, I see nothing in which they are alike save in respect of their prancing—a quality I would gladly forego in the present case, seeing that I am like to find little comfort in it.'

As we spoke Harry came out of the captain's cabin, and Sergeant Culverin had to leave to accompany his master back to the Swan. My brother, good heart, did his best to bid me farewell as of old, but what between my shamefacedness to see his careworn look and damped spirit, and his own too recent sense of the great wrong I had done him, our leave-taking was cold and formal, for all he tried so hard to forgive.