“My dear young gentleman, there is no need of so many courtier’s words. I am your father’s friend, and yours. And God forbid that a Cary—for I guess your drift—should ever wish to make a head or a heart ache; that is, more than—”

“Those of whom it is written, ‘Though thou bray a fool in a mortar, yet will not his folly depart from him,’” interposed Frank, in so sad a tone that no one at the table replied; and few more words were exchanged, till the two brothers were safe outside the house; and then—

“Amyas,” said Frank, “that was a Devon man’s handiwork, nevertheless; it was Eustace’s handwriting.”

“Impossible!”

“No, lad. I have been secretary to a prince, and learnt to interpret cipher, and to watch every pen-stroke; and, young as I am, I think that I am not easily deceived. Would God I were! Come on, lad; and strike no man hastily, lest thou cut off thine own flesh.”

So forth the two went, along the park to the eastward, and past the head of the little wood-embosomed fishing-town, a steep stair of houses clinging to the cliff far below them, the bright slate roofs and white walls glittering in the moonlight; and on some half-mile farther, along the steep hill-side, fenced with oak wood down to the water’s edge, by a narrow forest path, to a point where two glens meet and pour their streamlets over a cascade some hundred feet in height into the sea below. By the side of this waterfall a narrow path climbs upward from the beach; and here it was that the two brothers expected to meet the messenger.

Frank insisted on taking his station below Amyas. He said that he was certain that Eustace himself would make his appearance, and that he was more fit than Amyas to bring him to reason by parley; that if Amyas would keep watch some twenty yards above, the escape of the messenger would be impossible. Moreover, he was the elder brother, and the post of honor was his right. So Amyas obeyed him, after making him promise that if more than one man came up the path, he would let them pass him before he challenged, so that both might bring them to bay at the same time.

So Amyas took his station under a high marl bank, and, bedded in luxuriant crown-ferns, kept his eye steadily on Frank, who sat down on a little knoll of rock (where is now a garden on the cliff-edge) which parts the path and the dark chasm down which the stream rushes to its final leap over the cliff.

There Amyas sat a full half-hour, and glanced at whiles from Frank to look upon the scene around. Outside the southwest wind blew fresh and strong, and the moonlight danced upon a thousand crests of foam; but within the black jagged point which sheltered the town, the sea did but heave, in long oily swells of rolling silver, onward into the black shadow of the hills, within which the town and pier lay invisible, save where a twinkling light gave token of some lonely fisher’s wife, watching the weary night through for the boat which would return with dawn. Here and there upon the sea, a black speck marked a herring-boat, drifting with its line of nets; and right off the mouth of the glen, Amyas saw, with a beating heart, a large two-masted vessel lying-to—that must be the “Portugal”! Eagerly he looked up the glen, and listened; but he heard nothing but the sweeping of the wind across the downs five hundred feet above, and the sough of the waterfall upon the rocks below; he saw nothing but the vast black sheets of oak-wood sloping up to the narrow blue sky above, and the broad bright hunter’s moon, and the woodcocks, which, chuckling to each other, hawked to and fro, like swallows, between the tree-tops and the sky.

At last he heard a rustle of the fallen leaves; he shrank closer and closer into the darkness of the bank. Then swift light steps—not down the path, from above, but upward, from below; his heart beat quick and loud. And in another half-minute a man came in sight, within three yards of Frank’s hiding-place.

Frank sprang out instantly. Amyas saw his bright blade glance in the clear October moonlight.

“Stand in the queen’s name!”

The man drew a pistol from under his cloak, and fired full in his face. Had it happened in these days of detonators, Frank’s chance had been small; but to get a ponderous wheel-lock under weigh was a longer business, and before the fizzing of the flint had ceased, Frank had struck up the pistol with his rapier, and it exploded harmlessly over his head. The man instantly dashed the weapon in his face and closed.

The blow, luckily, did not take effect on that delicate forehead, but struck him on the shoulder: nevertheless, Frank, who with all his grace and agility was as fragile as a lily, and a very bubble of the earth, staggered, and lost his guard, and before he could recover himself, Amyas saw a dagger gleam, and one, two, three blows fiercely repeated.

Mad with fury, he was with them in an instant. They were scuffling together so closely in the shade that he was afraid to use his sword point; but with the hilt he dealt a single blow full on the ruffian’s cheek. It was enough; with a hideous shriek, the fellow rolled over at his feet, and Amyas set his foot on him, in act to run him through.

“Stop! stay!” almost screamed Frank; “it is Eustace! our cousin Eustace!” and he leant against a tree.

Amyas sprang towards him: but Frank waved him off.

“It is nothing—a scratch. He has papers: I am sure of it. Take them; and for God’s sake let him go!”

“Villain! give me your papers!” cried Amyas, setting his foot once more on the writhing Eustace, whose jaw was broken across.

“You struck me foully from behind,” moaned he, his vanity and envy even then coming out, in that faint and foolish attempt to prove Amyas not so very much better a man.

“Hound, do you think that I dare not strike you in front? Give me your papers, letters, whatever Popish devilry you carry; or as I live, I will cut off your head, and take them myself, even if it cost me the shame of stripping your corpse. Give them up! Traitor, murderer! give them, I say!” And setting his foot on him afresh, he raised his sword.

Eustace was usually no craven: but he was cowed. Between agony and shame, he had no heart to resist. Martyrdom, which looked so splendid when consummated selon les regles on Tower Hill or Tyburn, before pitying, or (still better) scoffing multitudes, looked a confused, dirty, ugly business there in the dark forest; and as he lay, a stream of moonlight bathed his mighty cousin’s broad clear forehead, and his long golden locks, and his white terrible blade, till he seemed, to Eustace’s superstitious eye, like one of those fair young St. Michaels trampling on the fiend, which he had seen abroad in old German pictures. He shuddered; pulled a packet from his bosom, and threw it from him, murmuring, “I have not given it.”

“Swear to me that these are all the papers which you have in cipher or out of cipher. Swear on your soul, or you die!”

Eustace swore.

“Tell me, who are your accomplices?”

“Never!” said Eustace. “Cruel! have you not degraded me enough already?” and the wretched young man burst into tears, and hid his bleeding face in his hands.

One hint of honor made Amyas as gentle as a lamb. He lifted Eustace up, and bade him run for his life.

“I am to owe my life, then, to you?”

“Not in the least; only to your being a Leigh. Go, or it will be worse for you!” And Eustace went; while Amyas, catching up the precious packet, hurried to Frank. He had fainted already, and his brother had to carry him as far as the park before he could find any of the other watchers. The blind, as far as they were concerned, was complete. They had heard and seen nothing. Whosoever had brought the packet had landed they knew not where; and so all returned to the court, carrying Frank, who recovered gradually, having rather bruises than wounds; for his foe had struck wildly, and with a trembling hand.

Half-an-hour after, Amyas, Mr. Cary, and his son Will were in deep consultation over the following epistle, the only paper in the packet which was not in cipher:—

“‘DEAR BROTHER N. S. in Chto. et Ecclesia.

“This is to inform you and the friends of the cause, that S. Josephus has landed in Smerwick, with eight hundred valiant Crusaders, burning with holy zeal to imitate last year’s martyrs of Carrigfolium, and to expiate their offences (which I fear may have been many) by the propagation of our most holy faith. I have purified the fort (which they are strenuously rebuilding) with prayer and holy water, from the stain of heretical footsteps, and consecrated it afresh to the service of Heaven, as the first-fruits of the isle of saints; and having displayed the consecrated banner to the adoration of the faithful, have returned to Earl Desmond, that I may establish his faith, weak as yet, by reason of the allurements of this world: though since, by the valor of his brother James, he that hindered was taken out of the way (I mean Davils the heretic, sacrifice well-pleasing in the eyes of Heaven!), the young man has lent a more obedient ear to my counsels. If you can do anything, do it quickly, for a great door and effectual is opened, and there are many adversaries. But be swift, for so do the poor lambs of the Church tremble at the fury of the heretics, that a hundred will flee before one Englishman. And, indeed, were it not for that divine charity toward the Church (which covers the multitude of sins) with which they are resplendent, neither they nor their country would be, by the carnal judgment, counted worthy of so great labor in their behalf. For they themselves are given much to lying, theft, and drunkenness, vain babbling, and profane dancing and singing; and are still, as S. Gildas reports of them, ‘more careful to shroud their villainous faces in bushy hair, than decently to cover their bodies; while their land (by reason of the tyranny of their chieftains, and the continual wars and plunderings among their tribes, which leave them weak and divided, an easy prey to the myrmidons of the excommunicate and usurping Englishwoman) lies utterly waste with fire, and defaced with corpses of the starved and slain. But what are these things, while the holy virtue of Catholic obedience still flourishes in their hearts? The Church cares not for the conservation of body and goods, but of immortal souls.

“If any devout lady shall so will, you may obtain from her liberality a shirt for this worthless tabernacle, and also a pair of hose; for I am unsavory to myself and to others, and of such luxuries none here has superfluity; for all live in holy poverty, except the fleas, who have that consolation in this world for which this unhappy nation, and those who labor among them, must wait till the world to come.¹

“Your loving brother,

“N. S.”

“Sir Richard must know of this before daybreak,” cried old Cary. “Eight hundred men landed! We must call out the Posse Comitatus, and sail with them bodily. I will go myself, old as I am. Spaniards in Ireland? not a dog of them must go home again.”

“Not a dog of them,” answered Will; “but where is Mr. Winter and his squadron?”

“Safe in Milford Haven; a messenger must be sent to him too.”

“I’ll go,” said Amyas: “but Mr. Cary is right. Sir Richard must know all first.”

“And we must have those Jesuits.”

“What? Mr. Evans and Mr. Morgans? God help us—they are at my uncle’s! Consider the honor of our family!”

“Judge for yourself, my dear boy,” said old Mr. Cary, gently: “would it not be rank treason to let these foxes escape, while we have this damning proof against them?”

“I will go myself, then.”

“Why not? You may keep all straight, and Will shall go with you. Call a groom, Will, and get your horse saddled, and my Yorkshire gray; he will make better play with this big fellow on his back, than the little pony astride of which Mr. Leigh came walking in (as I hear) this morning. As for Frank, the ladies will see to him well enough, and glad enough, too, to have so fine a bird in their cage for a week or two.”

“And my mother?”

“We’ll send to her to-morrow by daybreak. Come, a stirrup cup to start with, hot and hot. Now, boots, cloaks, swords, a deep pull and a warm one, and away!”

And the jolly old man bustled them out of the house and into their saddles, under the broad bright winter’s moon.

“You must make your pace, lads, or the moon will be down before you are over the moors.” And so away they went.

Neither of them spoke for many a mile. Amyas, because his mind was fixed firmly on the one object of saving the honor of his house; and Will, because he was hesitating between Ireland and the wars, and Rose Salterne and love-making. At last he spoke suddenly.

“I’ll go, Amyas.”

“Whither?”

“To Ireland with you, old man. I have dragged my anchor at last.”

“What anchor, my lad of parables?”

“See, here am I, a tall and gallant ship.”

“Modest even if not true.”

“Inclination, like an anchor, holds me tight.”

“To the mud.”

“Nay, to a bed of roses—not without their thorns.”

“Hillo! I have seen oysters grow on fruit-trees before now, but never an anchor in a rose-garden.”

“Silence, or my allegory will go to noggin-staves.”

“Against the rocks of my flinty discernment.”

“Pooh—well. Up comes duty like a jolly breeze, blowing dead from the northeast, and as bitter and cross as a northeaster too, and tugs me away toward Ireland. I hold on by the rosebed—any ground in a storm—till every strand is parted, and off I go, westward ho! to get my throat cut in a bog-hole with Amyas Leigh.”

“Earnest, Will?”

“As I am a sinful man.”

“Well done, young hawk of the White Cliff!”

“I had rather have called it Gallantry Bower still, though,” said Will, punning on the double name of the noble precipice which forms the highest point of the deer park.

“Well, as long as you are on land, you know it is Gallantry Bower still: but we always call it White Cliff when you see it from the sea-board, as you and I shall do, I hope, to-morrow evening.”

“What, so soon?”

“Dare we lose a day?”

“I suppose not: heigh-ho!”

And they rode on again in silence, Amyas in the meanwhile being not a little content (in spite of his late self-renunciation) to find that one of his rivals at least was going to raise the siege of the Rose garden for a few months, and withdraw his forces to the coast of Kerry.

As they went over Bursdon, Amyas pulled up suddenly.

“Did you not hear a horse’s step on our left?”

“On our left—coming up from Welsford moor? Impossible at this time of night. It must have been a stag, or a sownder of wild swine: or may be only an old cow.”

“It was the ring of iron, friend. Let us stand and watch.”

Bursdon and Welsford were then, as now, a rolling range of dreary moors, unbroken by tor or tree, or anything save few and far between a world-old furze-bank which marked the common rights of some distant cattle farm, and crossed then, not as now, by a decent road, but by a rough confused track-way, the remnant of an old Roman road from Clovelly dikes to Launceston. To the left it trended down towards a lower range of moors, which form the watershed of the heads of Torridge; and thither the two young men peered down over the expanse of bog and furze, which glittered for miles beneath the moon, one sheet of frosted silver, in the heavy autumn dew.

“If any of Eustace’s party are trying to get home from Freshwater, they might save a couple of miles by coming across Welsford, instead of going by the main track, as we have done.” So said Amyas, who though (luckily for him) no “genius,” was cunning as a fox in all matters of tactic and practic, and would have in these days proved his right to be considered an intellectual person by being a thorough man of business.

“If any of his party are mad, they’ll try it, and be stogged till the day of judgment. There are bogs in the bottom twenty feet deep. Plague on the fellow, whoever he is, he has dodged us! Look there!”

It was too true. The unknown horseman had evidently dismounted below, and led his horse up on the other side of a long furze-dike; till coming to the point where it turned away again from his intended course, he appeared against the sky, in the act of leading his nag over a gap.

“Ride like the wind!” and both youths galloped across furze and heather at him; but ere they were within a hundred yards of him, he had leapt again on his horse, and was away far ahead.

“There is the dor to us, with a vengeance,” cried Cary, putting in the spurs.

“It is but a lad; we shall never catch him.”

“I’ll try, though; and do you lumber after as you can, old heavysides;” and Cary pushed forward.

Amyas lost sight of him for ten minutes, and then came up with him dismounted, and feeling disconsolately at his horse’s knees.

“Look for my head. It lies somewhere about among the furze there; and oh! I am as full of needles as ever was a pin-cushion.”

“Are his knees broken?”

“I daren’t look. No, I believe not. Come along, and make the best of a bad matter. The fellow is a mile ahead, and to the right, too.”

“He is going for Moorwinstow, then; but where is my cousin?”

“Behind us, I dare say. We shall nab him at least.”

“Cary, promise me that if we do, you will keep out of sight, and let me manage him.”

“My boy, I only want Evan Morgans and Morgan Evans. He is but the cat’s paw, and we are after the cats themselves.”

And so they went on another dreary six miles, till the land trended downwards, showing dark glens and masses of woodland far below.

“Now, then, straight to Chapel, and stop the foxes’ earth? Or through the King’s Park to Stow, and get out Sir Richard’s hounds, hue and cry, and queen’s warrant in proper form?”

“Let us see Sir Richard first; and whatsoever he decides about my uncle, I will endure as a loyal subject must.”

So they rode through the King’s Park, while Sir Richard’s colts came whinnying and staring round the intruders, and down through a rich woodland lane five hundred feet into the valley, till they could hear the brawling of the little trout-stream, and beyond, the everlasting thunder of the ocean surf.

Down through warm woods, all fragrant with dying autumn flowers, leaving far above the keen Atlantic breeze, into one of those delicious Western combes, and so past the mill, and the little knot of flower-clad cottages. In the window of one of them a light was still burning. The two young men knew well whose window that was; and both hearts beat fast; for Rose Salterne slept, or rather seemed to wake, in that chamber.

“Folks are late in Combe to-night,” said Amyas, as carelessly as he could.

Cary looked earnestly at the window, and then sharply enough at Amyas; but Amyas was busy settling his stirrup; and Cary rode on, unconscious that every fibre in his companion’s huge frame was trembling like his own.

“Muggy and close down here,” said Amyas, who, in reality, was quite faint with his own inward struggles.

“We shall be at Stow gate in five minutes,” said Cary, looking back and down longingly as his horse climbed the opposite hill; but a turn of the zigzag road hid the cottage, and the next thought was, how to effect an entrance into Stow at three in the morning without being eaten by the ban-dogs, who were already howling and growling at the sound of the horse-hoofs.

However, they got safely in, after much knocking and calling, through the postern gate in the high west wall, into a mansion, the description whereof I must defer to the next chapter, seeing that the moon has already sunk into the Atlantic, and there is darkness over land and sea.

Sir Richard, in his long gown, was soon downstairs in the hall; the letter read, and the story told; but ere it was half finished—

“Anthony, call up a groom, and let him bring me a horse round. Gentlemen, if you will excuse me five minutes, I shall be at your service.”

“You will not go alone, Richard?” asked Lady Grenville, putting her beautiful face in its nightcoif out of an adjoining door.

“Surely, sweet chuck, we three are enough to take two poor polecats of Jesuits. Go in, and help me to boot and gird.”

In half an hour they were down and up across the valley again, under the few low ashes clipt flat by the sea-breeze which stood round the lonely gate of Chapel.

“Mr. Cary, there is a back path across the downs to Marsland; go and guard that.” Cary rode off; and Sir Richard, as he knocked loudly at the gate—

“Mr. Leigh, you see that I have consulted your honor, and that of your poor uncle, by adventuring thus alone. What will you have me do now, which may not be unfit for me and you?”

“Oh, sir!” said Amyas, with tears in his honest eyes, “you have shown yourself once more what you always have been—my dear and beloved master on earth, not second even to my admiral Sir Francis Drake.”

“Or the queen, I hope,” said Grenville, smiling, “but pocas palabras. What will you do?”

“My wretched cousin, sir, may not have returned—and if I might watch for him on the main road—unless you want me with you.”

“Richard Grenville can walk alone, lad. But what will you do with your cousin?”

“Send him out of the country, never to return; or if he refuses, run him through on the spot.”

“Go, lad.” And as he spoke, a sleepy voice asked inside the gate, “Who was there?”

“Sir Richard Grenville. Open, in the queen’s name?”

“Sir Richard? He is in bed, and be hanged to you. No honest folk come at this hour of night.”

“Amyas!” shouted Sir Richard. Amyas rode back.

“Burst that gate for me, while I hold your horse.”

Amyas leaped down, took up a rock from the roadside, such as Homer’s heroes used to send at each other’s heads, and in an instant the door was flat on the ground, and the serving-man on his back inside, while Sir Richard quietly entering over it, like Una into the hut, told the fellow to get up and hold his horse for him (which the clod, who knew well enough that terrible voice, did without further murmurs), and then strode straight to the front door. It was already opened. The household had been up and about all along, or the noise at the entry had aroused them.

Sir Richard knocked, however, at the open door; and, to his astonishment, his knock was answered by Mr. Leigh himself, fully dressed, and candle in hand.

“Sir Richard Grenville! What, sir! is this neighborly, not to say gentle, to break into my house in the dead of night?”

“I broke your outer door, sir, because I was refused entrance when I asked in the queen’s name. I knocked at your inner one, as I should have knocked at the poorest cottager’s in the parish, because I found it open. You have two Jesuits here, sir! and here is the queen’s warrant for apprehending them. I have signed it with my own hand, and, moreover, serve it now, with my own hand, in order to save you scandal—and it may be, worse. I must have these men, Mr. Leigh.”

“My dear Sir Richard—!”

“I must have them, or I must search the house; and you would not put either yourself or me to so shameful a necessity?”

“My dear Sir Richard!—”

“Must I, then, ask you to stand back from your own doorway, my dear sir?” said Grenville. And then changing his voice to that fearful lion’s roar, for which he was famous, and which it seemed impossible that lips so delicate could utter, he thundered, “Knaves, behind there! Back!”

This was spoken to half-a-dozen grooms and serving-men, who, well armed, were clustered in the passage.

“What? swords out, you sons of cliff rabbits?” And in a moment, Sir Richard’s long blade flashed out also, and putting Mr. Leigh gently aside, as if he had been a child, he walked up to the party, who vanished right and left; having expected a cur dog, in the shape of a parish constable, and come upon a lion instead. They were stout fellows enough, no doubt, in a fair fight: but they had no stomach to be hanged in a row at Launceston Castle, after a preliminary running through the body by that redoubted admiral and most unpeaceful justice of the peace.

“And now, my dear Mr. Leigh,” said Sir Richard, as blandly as ever, “where are my men? The night is cold; and you, as well as I, need to be in our beds.”

“The men, Sir Richard—the Jesuits—they are not here, indeed.”

“Not here, sir?”

“On the word of a gentleman, they left my house an hour ago. Believe me, sir, they did. I will swear to you if you need.”

“I believe Mr. Leigh of Chapel’s word without oaths. Whither are they gone?”

“Nay, sir—how can I tell? They are—they are, as I may say, fled, sir; escaped.”

“With your connivance; at least with your son’s. Where are they gone?”

“As I live, I do not know.”

“Mr. Leigh—is this possible? Can you add untruth to that treason from the punishment of which I am trying to shield you?”

Poor Mr. Leigh burst into tears.

“Oh! my God! my God! is it come to this? Over and above having the fear and anxiety of keeping these black rascals in my house, and having to stop their villainous mouths every minute, for fear they should hang me and themselves, I am to be called a traitor and a liar in my old age, and that, too, by Richard Grenville! Would God I had never been born! Would God I had no soul to be saved, and I’d just go and drown care in drink, and let the queen and the Pope fight it out their own way!” And the poor old man sank into a chair, and covered his face with his hands, and then leaped up again.

“Bless my heart! Excuse me, Sir Richard—to sit down and leave you standing. ‘S life, sir, sorrow is making a hawbuck of me. Sit down, my dear sir! my worshipful sir! or rather come with me into my room, and hear a poor wretched man’s story, for I swear before God the men are fled; and my poor boy Eustace is not home either, and the groom tells me that his devil of a cousin has broken his jaw for him; and his mother is all but mad this hour past. Good lack! good lack!”

“He nearly murdered his angel of a cousin, sir!” said Sir Richard, severely.

“What, sir? They never told me.”

“He had stabbed his cousin Frank three times, sir, before Amyas, who is as noble a lad as walks God’s earth, struck him down. And in defence of what, forsooth, did he play the ruffian and the swashbuckler, but to bring home to your house this letter, sir, which you shall hear at your leisure, the moment I have taken order about your priests.” And walking out of the house he went round and called to Cary to come to him.

“The birds are flown, Will,” whispered he. “There is but one chance for us, and that is Marsland Mouth. If they are trying to take boat there, you may be yet in time. If they are gone inland we can do nothing till we raise the hue and cry to-morrow.”

And Will galloped off over the downs toward Marsland, while Sir Richard ceremoniously walked in again, and professed himself ready and happy to have the honor of an audience in Mr. Leigh’s private chamber. And as we know pretty well already what was to be discussed therein, we had better go over to Marsland Mouth, and, if possible, arrive there before Will Cary: seeing that he arrived hot and swearing, half an hour too late.

Note.—I have shrunk somewhat from giving these and other sketches (true and accurate as I believe them to be) of Ireland during Elizabeth’s reign, when the tyranny and lawlessness of the feudal chiefs had reduced the island to such a state of weakness and barbarism, that it was absolutely necessary for England either to crush the Norman-Irish nobility, and organize some sort of law and order, or to leave Ireland an easy prey to the Spaniards, or any other nation which should go to war with us. The work was done—clumsily rather than cruelly; but wrongs were inflicted, and avenged by fresh wrongs, and those by fresh again. May the memory of them perish forever! It has been reserved for this age, and for the liberal policy of this age, to see the last ebullitions of Celtic excitability die out harmless and ashamed of itself, and to find that the Irishman, when he is brought as a soldier under the regenerative influence of law, discipline, self-respect, and loyalty, can prove himself a worthy rival of the more stern Norse-Saxon warrior. God grant that the military brotherhood between Irish and English, which is the special glory of the present war, may be the germ of a brotherhood industrial, political, and hereafter, perhaps, religious also; and that not merely the corpses of heroes, but the feuds and wrongs which have parted them for centuries, may lie buried, once and forever, in the noble graves of Alma and Inkerman.

1. See note at end of chapter.