Amyas looked from one to the other.
“God only knows which of the two is less fit to go. Mother! mother! you know not what you ask. Frank! Frank! I do not want you with me. This is a sterner matter than either of you fancy it to be; one that must be worked out, not with kind words, but with sharp shot and cold steel.”
“How?” cried both together, aghast.
“I must pay my men, and pay my fellow-adventurers; and I must pay them with Spanish gold. And what is more, I cannot, as a loyal subject of the queen's, go to the Spanish Main with a clear conscience on my own private quarrel, unless I do all the harm that my hand finds to do, by day and night, to her enemies, and the enemies of God.”
“What nobler knight-errantry?” said Frank, cheerfully; but Mrs. Leigh shuddered.
“What! Frank too?” she said, half to herself; but her sons knew what she meant. Amyas's warlike life, honorable and righteous as she knew it to be, she had borne as a sad necessity: but that Frank as well should become “a man of blood,” was more than her gentle heart could face at first sight. That one youthful duel of his he had carefully concealed from her, knowing her feeling on such matters. And it seemed too dreadful to her to associate that gentle spirit with all the ferocities and the carnage of a battlefield. “And yet,” said she to herself, “is this but another of the self-willed idols which I must renounce one by one?” And then, catching at a last hope, she answered—
“Frank must at least ask the queen's leave to go; and if she permits, how can I gainsay her wisdom?”
And so the conversation dropped, sadly enough.
But now began a fresh perplexity in Frank's soul, which amused Amyas at first, when it seemed merely jest, but nettled him a good deal when he found it earnest. For Frank looked forward to asking the queen's permission for his voyage with the most abject despondency and terror. Two or three days passed before he could make up his mind to ask for an interview with her; and he spent the time in making as much interest with Leicester, Hatton, and Sidney, as if he were about to sue for a reprieve from the scaffold.
So said Amyas, remarking, further, that the queen could not cut his head off for wanting to go to sea.