One day just after dinner Uncle Simeon came in in his usual noiseless cat-like way. I just had time to stuff the book under the mattress and to begin pretending to do my hair. He did not seem to have seen anything.
I began to compare or contrast everything I read with myself or my own experiences. Flogging, for instance,—as practised by Sir Vindex Brimblecombe, whilom servitor of Exeter College, Oxford, and master of the Grammar School of Torribridge. I read with interest that flogging is the "best of all punishments" (I inclined to doubt this), "being not only the shortest" (indeed!) "but also a mere bodily and animal punishment" (why mere?), "though for the punisher himself pretty certain to eradicate from all but the noblest spirits every trace of chivalry and tenderness for the weak, as well as all self-control and command of temper." How true! How Aunt Jael's chivalry had waned! How Uncle Simeon's tenderness for the weak had withered and wilted away! Surely this book too was inspired. I enjoyed Amyas' encounter with Sir Vindex Brimblecombe. I loved to read how Sir Vindex jumped up, ferula in hand, and exhorted Amyas to "come hither, sirrah, and be flayed alive"; how the latter "with a serene and cheerful countenance" took up his slate, and brought it down on the skull of Sir Vindex "with so shrewd a blow" that slate and pate cracked on the same instant, and Sir Vindex dropped down upon the floor and "lay for dead." Oh vicarious joy, oh borrowed plumes of valour that I wore for that incident! I shut my eyes and visualized Aunt Jael in the stead of Sir Vindex Brimblecombe. "Minx!" she said (not sirrah), as she advanced upon me "stick in hand," for although I did not know what a ferula was, I felt it was somewhat too light and lissom a description of thorned stick or ship's rope. How I envied Amyas' "serene and cheerful countenance" and revelled in the crash. I rehearsed the scene also with Uncle Simeon in the villain's part and with an even dearer joy brought down the avenging slate on his honey-coloured coxcomb.
To every character in the book I tried to give a face. Amyas, the hero, was my difficulty; I had met no heroes. Don Guzman I pictured as Uncle Simeon, though statelier and nobler. Mrs. Leigh was naturally Mrs. Lee, my Grandmother; in name and character alike. Salvation Yeo I pictured as Brother Brawn, Frank Leigh,—tall, pale and distinguished—was of course the Stranger. I did not care very much for the Rose of Torridge herself, and had little interest in any of the ladies' doings. Theirs was a secondary part. They did not do things themselves; they stayed at home in Torribridge to think about and wait for and be loved by the men who did the valiant deeds. Love affairs, so-called, failed to interest me at all, though the passionate affection between Mrs. Leigh and her sons made me husky and envious. It never occurred to me to visualize myself as Rose; if I took any part it was Amyas'.
I was much interested in the description of Christmas Day. "It was the blessed Christmas afternoon. The light was fading down; the even-song was done; and the good folks of Torribridge were trooping home in merry groups, the father with his children, the lover with his sweetheart, to cakes and ale, and flap-dragons and mummers' plays, and all the happy sports of Christmas night." Why blessed Christmas afternoon, I wondered? Was the word used in Mrs. Cheese's naughty sense or Miss Glory Clinker's noble one? In either case I didn't see how it applied to the hideous 25th of December at Bear Lawn.
I was pleased with the sound views on Popery, described as frantic, filthy, wily, false, cruel. Papists were skulkers, dogs, slanderers, murderers, devils. To be brought up by Catholics was to be taught the science of villany on the motive of superstition, to learn that "all love was lust" and all goodness foul. A Romanist was not a man, but a thing, a tool, a Jesuit. I did not understand it all, but I approved highly. That bigotry which mars the book in the eyes of fair-minded men was the quality that sealed it with the mark of virtue in my zealot eyes. Critics (I have since learnt) forgive the slanderous religious hate of this book for the sake of the fresh spirit and the fine story: I excused these dangerous delights to my conscience and to my Grandmother's conscience by the author's pious attitude towards Rome and error. I felt that the book, in spite of the wild pleasure it gave me, must nevertheless be godly, because of the pious plenitude with which it anathematized the Bad Old Man of the Seven Hills, the Scarlet Woman, the Great Whore of Babylon, the Blatant Beast, the great HIM-HER. There was self-deceiving here.
The story was the thing: the most chivalrous adventure of the good ship "Rose"; how they came to Barbados, and found no men therein; how they took the pearls at Margarita; what befell at La Guayra; Spanish Bloodhounds and English Mastiffs; how they took the Communion under the tree at Higuerote; the Inquisition in the Indies; the banks of the Meta; how Amyas was tempted of the devil; how they took the gold train. I lived in a world of gold and silver, ships and swords, Dons and Devils. I saw the great Cordillera covered with gigantic ferns, and the foamless blue Pacific. I caught my breath as I stumbled on the dim ruins of dead Indian Empires; and I wiped my eyes when I read of Salvation Yeo and his little maid. I liked to read of the Queen of England, of Drake, Raleigh and Sir Richard Grenville, Devon men all, and John Oxenham swaggering along Torribridge Quay. I was interested most of all by Don Guzman, with his sweet sonorous voice, his woman's grace and his golden hair, as of a god. He had been everywhere and seen all. He knew the two Americas, the East Indies and the West, Old Spain, the seven cities of Italy, the twilight-coloured Levant and the multitudinous East....
I skimmed through each chapter quickly, and then read it slowly to drink in every word. Excitement of another kind was added by the difficulties of reading; I had to stop sometimes in the middle of an exciting passage and hide the book hastily away, when I heard Uncle Simeon on the staircase. However, I managed to get three-quarters way through without mishap: as far as the attack on the gold train. Amyas and his men were hiding in the forest. The long awaited Spaniards and their treasure were just in sight. "Suddenly"—my heart beat fast, then stood still at the sound of a stealthy foot-fall. The door opened and Uncle Simeon came in. I had no time to stuff the book under the mattress properly. I leaned against the place where the clothes were ruffled and pretended to be making my bed. This, I thought bitterly, was the only sort of excitement my life afforded: not splendid bravery and adventure in South American forests but mere feeble cunning to save myself from this whey-faced cringing wretch. He smiled blandly.
"Your aunt wants you to go for a walk with her," he said.
He tried to appear unconcerned, but I feared he had seen something. The moment he had gone I hid the book carefully under the mattress, right in the very middle of the bed. When I came back from the walk with Aunt Martha I went straight up to my room. The book was not there. My first rage at losing my treasure gave place, upon reflection, to fear. What would he do? At tea he smiled in a sneering way and said "What is worrying you, little one? You are pale." His manner frightened me. The very fact that he said nothing about the matter was unusual and presaged something exceptionally bad. Would he use the whip, or make the worst of it to Aunt Jael and Grandmother? And what had he done with the book? The answer to these questions, though I did not know it till much later, is lying before me as I write. It is written on faded yellow paper, in a neat hand, with old-fashioned pointed characters.