“There be now four winds—the north wind, and his sisters, the east, the west, and south. When God sends a fifth wind, then conspirators shall wear crowns. Till then Delicio shall sow and I shall reap, as is Heaven’s will.”
Lemprière lay back and roared with laughter. “Before Belial, there never was such another as thou, fool. Conspirators shall die and not prevail, for a man may not marry his sister, and the north wind shall have no progeny. So there shall be no fifth wind.”
“Proved, proved!” cried the fool. “The north wind shall go whistle for a mate—there shall be no fifth wind. So Delicio shall still sail by the compass, and shall still compass all, and yet be compassed by none; for it is written, Who compasseth Delicio existeth not.”
Buonespoir watched a lark soaring, as though its flight might lead him through the fool’s argument clearly. Lemprière closed his eye and struggled with it, his lips out-pursed, his head sunk on his breast. Suddenly his eyes opened; he brought the bottle of canary down with a thud on the turf. “‘Fore Michael and all angels, I have it, fool; I travel, I conceive. De Carteret of St. Ouen’s must have gone to the block ere conceiving so. I must conceive thus of the argument. He who compasseth the Queen existeth not, for, compassing, he dieth.”
“So it is by the hour-glass and the fortune told in the porringer. You have conceived like a man, Nuncio.”
“And conspirators, I conceive, must die, so long as there be honest men to slay them,” rejoined the seigneur.
“Must only honest men slay conspirators? Oh, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego!” wheezed Buonespoir, with a grin. He placed his hand upon his head in self-pity. “Buonespoir, art thou damned by muscadella?” he murmured.
“But thou art purged of the past, Bono Publico,” answered the fool. “Since Delicio hath looked upon thee she hath shredded the Tyburn lien upon thee—thou art flushed like a mountain spring; and conspirators shall fall down by thee if thou, passant, dost fall by conspirators in the way. Bono Publico, thou shalt live by good company. Henceforth contraband shall be spurned and the book of grace opened.”
Buonespoir’s eyes laughed like a summer sky, but he scratched his head and turned over the rose-stem in his mouth reflectively. “So be it, then, if it must be; but yesterday the Devon sea-sweeper, Francis Drake, overhauled me in my cottage, coming from the Queen, who had infused him of me. ‘I have heard of you from a high mast-head,’ said he. ‘If the Spanish main allure you, come with me. There be galleons yonder still; they shall cough up doubloons.’ ‘It hath a sound of piracy,’ said I. ‘I am expurgated. My name is written on clean paper now, blessed be the name of the Queen!’ ‘Tut, tut, Buonesperado,’ laughed he, ‘you shall forget that Tyburn is not a fable if you care to have doubloons reminted at the Queen’s mint. It is meet Spanish Philip’s head be molted to oblivion, and Elizabeth’s raised, so that good silver be purged of Popish alloy.’ But that I had sworn by the little finger of St. Peter, when the moon was full, never to leave the English seas, I also would have gone with Drake of Devon this day. It is a man and a master of men, that Drake of Devon.”
“’Tis said that when a man hath naught left but life, and hath treated his honor like a poor relation, he goes to the Spanish main with Drake and Grenville,” said Lemprière.