Katharine Tynan

“ For truly her will was brass and iron; nothing for man, however great, to prevail against, and for long her face had been turned away from him, and seemed like to remain so.
I was getting well, with no heart to recover, when the reports came of the Cadiz expedition. It was glorious summer weather, and my Lady Raleigh, whose patience was more than human with me, would have me carried to the lawn under shade of trees; and there laid on my pillows I would listen to her proud recitals of her lord’s heroic deeds.
It was on the 21st of June that the fleet entered Cadiz Harbor. ”

“ We were not bent on any adventure, for my lord thought only of gaining the Queen’s ear, displaying to her the earnest he brought of the treasures of Guiana, and returning thither as fast as might be after fitting out a large fleet of ships; and then of taking possession in the Queen’s name. For greater even than his passion for adventure were his love of England and hatred of Spain; and the new policy of pleasing King Philip he loathed with all his heart. ”

“ Even then there came from the harbor a ringing of bells and the shouts of the sailors as they drew up the anchor of the Bon Aventure from its bed in the sands. I therefore thrust my fine garments into my sea-chest and shot the bolt; but mine uncle’s message to me I put within my doublet. As the ship swung round, and we headed her for eastward I turned my thoughts away from the quiet sleeper in the church tower, and looked rather to my lord’s dark figure as he leant over the vessel’s side, gazing not the way she was going, but rather to westward. ”

“ Trust in the Queen’s pity he had not.
“There is no chance for me now, Wat,” he said once, “unless it be that one of my captains should bring home a treasure-ship to pour into her lap, which might buy my freedom if she conceived that by that means I might find her more. For she loves gold as other women love love, wherefore is her face become yellower than a guinea.”
It was for some such saying, doubtless, the Queen had had him cast in the Tower. ”

“ The sheriff asked him which way he would lay himself upon the block. “So as the heart be right,” he said, “it matters not which way the head lies.” Then he laid himself down; and since the headsman feared to strike, and well he might fear, my lord himself hurried him. “Strike, man, strike!” he cried; and in an instant the noblest head in England rolled upon the ground.
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. ”

“ The man knew not if I had met an enemy and been hacked or speared to death, or if the wolves had had me, or the fierce eagles that yet infest the forest in search of tender prey. He grieved to death not knowing. But the friar, Brother Ambrose, the last of the White Monks of Youghall, and mine uncle, known to men as Roderick Fitzmaurice, rested not till he had found if I were of this life, and at last discovered me. ”

“ I knew, too, that my lord had brought home to the Queen’s Majesty a necklace of pearls whereof each stone was larger than a cherry. And we had heard of Guiana that the very sands of the seashore sparkled with gold and silver, and that in the workings the old inhabitants thereof had made, that they might build their heathen temples, the walls were of gold, while the idols were crusted with jewels so that no man might look on them without winking. ”

“ The Queen harkened to him, and we were returned no more to the Tower; yet those two months of impatient fretting had set their mark upon my lord.
After this we sailed up the Dart to that Manor-house where the Lady Raleigh dwelt with her son. And again there was a very sweet interval of peace. I have now but to close my eyes and see again the red-brick ivied house, with its chimney-stack dark against the sky. The swallows are wheeling overhead, shouting and playing with one another. The rooks are coming homeward across the evening sky. ”

“ After they had gone, set in the endless dusk of summer evening, I grew tired of wandering about the gardens, so strange and sad without their master. So I went within doors, where some one had set a starveling rushlight in the chamber that was my lord’s dining-hall, and there I sat me down with my Latin grammar and the Virgil my lord had given me. At this time I sat daily on the wooden benches of the College School at Youghall, and had my learning of an old clerk Sir Walter had summoned here from Devonshire to take the place of the doctors and singing-men who had gone with the Desmonds. ”

“ Either the monk had so composed himself for death or he had had some companion who had fled away leaving him to the eye of heaven.
Standing there, a great awe and compassion fell upon me. Something of yearning and tenderness afflicted me as though the dead man had been of my blood: the tears rushed from my eyes, and I trembled so that I was forced to my knees; yea, as though invisible hands had bent me. I knew little of praying, but something of wordless petition to the Great Father of us all stirred in my dull and proud spirit. In that moment I had indeed the heart of a child. ”

“ I had thought perhaps that he longed so much to see the Lady Elizabeth and his boy. But he spoke, and I knew he was thinking of the free life of the rovers of the sea, not of that lady whom he so tenderly loved.
“If we prosper,” he said, “we shall sail for Guiana, and found there, who knows, another Virginia. The spoil of half a dozen fat galleons and a new country. These are things that even Gloriana need not disdain. Yet Essex hath all her ear, and Essex is mine enemy.”
“If you succeed, my lord—” I began. ”

“ The ship now swarmed with our men rushing hither and thither in search of treasure. Some were seizing the silver lamps before the shrines, others were tearing down the images. A rush of men swept me from my feet and down the cabin stairs, and I grasped my sword tighter. ”

“ Had he been differently framed this season at Youghall had been happy enough. For now there was no fighting to be done he led that quiet and pastoral life which might have won him Master Spenser’s title for him, The Shepherd of the Ocean. He delighted himself by planting the strange seeds and roots he had brought from the ends of the earth and seeing them thrive. All his garden ventures were fortunate. The kindly Irish soil suited well with the tobacco, the myrtle, and the fuchsia. At Affane, a little way up the Blackwater, he had his orchards, where already the cherry grew abundantly. ”

“ It was indeed close upon a year from the time I had seen the monk that at last I dared to touch upon the subject. It was one evening when we had been gardening together, and tired after that pleasant toil we sat beneath the myrtle trees. My lord’s brow for a little while was unfurrowed with care, and his eagle eyes looked at me softened through the mists of his smoke.
“My lord—” I began, and then could go no further.
“What is it, Wat?” he asked kindly.
“My lord, I am troubled about the question of my birth. To be nameless where every one hath a name is no light matter to bear.” ”

“ We sailed even into the golden city of Manoa, and there saw the houses with their strange carvings, and their cups and drinking-vessels of precious metal; and the marvellous temple with its hundred images of beaten gold, the eyes of diamonds, and with necklets of rubies large as pigeon’s eggs, and garments sewn with pearls and emeralds.
The poor Indians who possessed these treasures were a mild and gentle race, ignorant of how greatly men’s passions were inflamed by gold and gems, which to them were common matters. ”

“ Then as he was becoming restive, yea, straining as a hound strains at the leash, and declaring that he would sail before the mast if he might none other way, one of his captains, Popham by name, and a stout old sea-dog from the harbor town of Plymouth, brought him letters writ by a Spanish captain to the King of Spain, and captured by the English ship. Reading them my lord seemed as he would choke with fury. I knew how my lord’s heart turned to Guiana, the golden country. And these letters reported that the Governor of Trinidad had annexed this same wondrous land in the name of King Philip. ”

“ He who had been a noble and gallant youth was now become a noble and gallant man, and my lord had great hopes of him; but, alas, Death mows down the fairest and the most promising.
From the first the thing was ill-fated. We were not so far sailed when fever broke out and ravaged the ships. Now there is nothing like a pestilence for breaking the heart and reducing the spirit in men; and ere ever we reached Guiana shores there was grumbling a-shipboard and mutiny in the air. ”

“ As we waited for an audience we saw many great men pass, but not one fit to stand beside my lord. Then came the Queen, a shrunk, tall, high-boned woman, in a blaze of diamonds, the ruff standing about her spare, pale head like a setting sun, so thick it was with jewels, and her farthingale and petticoat making a prodigious circle about her. ”

“ They were no savages, but a nation with a certain knowledge of the arts and a civilization after their own manner; and it was touching to see how kindly and sweetly they welcomed the white man among them, although indeed in the ships were to be found some of the worst rascals that ever sailed out of Plymouth. However, fear of my lord kept this rascaldom in check; for he loved the Indians, and made it a matter with the Queen that in any expedition to the Guianas there should be no ill-treatment of the gentle race. ”

“ CHAPTER III.—OF MY SECRET, THE LORD BOYLE, AND OTHER MATTERS. In the autumn of that year my lord came back, and in my joy at seeing him again I hardly felt that he was sad. The Lord Essex had prevailed against him with the Queen and he was returned to exile, although one of his ships had brought in a Spanish galleon worth fifty thousand pounds. It must be remembered of him that his passion for discovering the unknown worlds swallowed up all the treasure he was able to discover; so that the sea was never without his ships, and one expedition but led to another. ”

“ My head would be no use to him, little Wat.”
“’Tis a poor warranty for holding a secret,” said I, bitterly.
“I am well-disposed to Master Boyle,” my lord went on. “He is a man of substance, Wat, and a useful friend for one like myself, who can keep nothing. We shall not pluck the jewels from the gold-trees of Guiana without money and ships. I am nearly sucked dry, and the Queen hath lost faith in me.” ”

“ He was as much set upon gardens as upon adventure and the search for new countries. Those of his captains who had returned had brought with them charts of the lands in which they had sailed, together with long reports concerning the inhabitants, their manner of living, their food and pursuits, the beasts and birds, the plants and ore, and all such matters; over which my lord would sit and pore in the long winter evenings, by the fire of driftwood, and smoking his long pipe. And sometimes he would talk with Master Spenser concerning them; but more often their talk ran on poetry and the arts. ”

“ I remember as we made the voyage how Wat and I used to gather at night about the mast to hear the sailors tell stories and sing songs. There was one, Jonas Tittlebat, of Devizes, who was our favorite story-teller of them all, and I doubt not our favorite stories were of the slaying of Spaniards and sacking of their ships. It was as though one should inure a tender child to the shambles. For we grew to love the talk of blood, and to desire to see and smell and taste it ”

“ It was a stolen expedition in a manner of speaking; for we hoisted our flag for Virginia, yet I think the meanest scullion aboard knew that Guiana was our port. For it was not politic to flout too openly Philip of Spain; though we might fly the Jolly Roger and overhaul his treasure-ships on the high seas. For the Queen of England, as she grew older grew craftier; and would have any cat’s-paw to draw her chestnuts out of the fire, and bear the brunt of it as well, while she went free. ”

“ Indeed, out in the night there would be companionship, although every bird slept well within the boughs. It is the houses men build that breed these phantoms of the brain, and not the free air. But disregarding the temptation I went back to my book, knowing full well the pleasure it would give my lord to learn that I had been diligent in his absence. Wonderful it was that he was hardly less in love with learning than with adventure. ”

“ Then he told me how he had always intended that I should have his portion of the Desmond inheritance, together with certain jewels and plate which he had hidden in a secret place in the garden at Youghall; but he had been obliged by sore necessity to give six thousand acres to the Lord Boyle, who was now Earl of Cork. Another six thousand the Lord Boyle was to hold in trust for me. “The deeds are safe,” he said, “and he is bound fast. If he will not disgorge, you must even make him.” ”