So ended the glorious Sir Walter Raleigh; and musing on that end and on the wrongs he suffered at the hands of Queen Elizabeth, I am often led to wonder that men should raise kings and queens over them to work such ill. For it seems to me that the great days of England were not made by Elizabeth Tudor or Harry, her sire, but by the great men who stood around them, and whom so often they sent to their death. Raleigh followed Essex by a space of less than a score years, both suffering execution; and I pray that in another world these two are friends who jostled each other in this, but came alike to the headsman’s block. The Tudors were too fond of beheading; but they, at least, sent their friends to the block and took the shame. I notice in these Stuarts something more treacherous—that they permit the slaying, and then will rend their garments.
However, what have I to do with bitterness? No sooner was my lord laid in the grave than I set out to visit my Lord Boyle; and being a great man now, his name carried me safely where I had not gone without. He received me with great honor as a friend of Sir Walter Raleigh, and entertained me well; but never a word he spoke concerning that trust. However, I will not wrong him, for I left him after all without saying farewell. I was little minded to dispute with him the possession of those acres; but I paid a visit by stealth to the garden of the Manor-house, and there dug up the treasure of which Sir Walter had warned me, and conveyed it privily on board my vessel.
It had to be done piecemeal, for I trusted none but myself; but when my sea-chests held all those chalices and monstrances and golden candlesticks, we weighed anchor one night of storm, and sailed from Youghall without so much as farewell to my Lord Boyle. However, it comforted him doubtless that I never spoke of the trust, but disappeared from his world that stormy night as though I had gone on a witch’s broomstick.
I had fain given mine uncle’s bones burial, but that might not be; so I left him in the consecrated place where he had lain so many years—to the birds of heaven and the angels.
But for myself, I and my sea-chests were put ashore at a little French town, from whence in due time I made my way to Douai, and restored the treasure to Her from whom it had been taken. And since Tyburn Tree had so greatly added to the glorious throng of the martyrs, and the ranks were thinned of those who would follow in their footsteps, I asked the Fathers of the English College to accept me among them, which of their graciousness they did; for I was grown sick of the world. And who cares that Father Walter is pock-pitted and hath one blind eye?
Once I had cared only to be of the flower of knighthood. Now all my dream is that I might some day earn that greeting of St. Philip to my forerunners in these gray halls—Salvete, flos martyrum!
PRINTED BY BENZIGER BROTHERS, NEW YORK.
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GREAT CAPTAIN: A STORY OF THE DAYS OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH ***