CHAPTER I
WHY THOMAS WINGFIELD TELLS HIS TALE
Now glory be to God who has given us the victory! It is true, thestrength of Spain is shattered, her ships are sunk or fled, the sea hasswallowed her soldiers and her sailors by hundreds and by thousands, andEngland breathes again. They came to conquer, to bring us to the tortureand the stake--to do to us free Englishmen as Cortes did by the Indiansof Anahuac. Our manhood to the slave bench, our daughters to dishonour,our souls to the loving-kindness of the priest, our wealth to theEmperor and the Pope! God has answered them with his winds, Drake hasanswered them with his guns. They are gone, and with them the glory ofSpain.
I, Thomas Wingfield, heard the news to-day on this very Thursday in theBungay market-place, whither I went to gossip and to sell the appleswhich these dreadful gales have left me, as they hang upon my trees.
Before there had been rumours of this and of that, but here in Bungaywas a man named Young, of the Youngs of Yarmouth, who had served in oneof the Yarmouth ships in the fight at Gravelines, aye and sailed northafter the Spaniards till they were lost in the Scottish seas.
Little things lead to great, men say, but here great things lead tolittle, for because of these tidings it comes about that I, ThomasWingfield, of the Lodge and the parish of Ditchingham in the county ofNorfolk, being now of a great age and having only a short time to live,turn to pen and ink. Ten years ago, namely, in the year 1578, it pleasedher Majesty, our gracious Queen Elizabeth, who at that date visited thiscounty, that I should be brought before her at Norwich. There and then,saying that the fame of it had reached her, she commanded me to giveher some particulars of the story of my life, or rather of those twentyyears, more or less, which I spent among the Indians at that time whenCortes conquered their country of Anahuac, which is now known as Mexico.But almost before I could begin my tale, it was time for her to startfor Cossey to hunt the deer, and she said it was her wish that I shouldwrite the story down that she might read it, and moreover that if itwere but half as wonderful as it promised to be, I should end my daysas Sir Thomas Wingfield. To this I answered her Majesty that pen and inkwere tools I had no skill in, yet I would bear her command in mind.Then I made bold to give her a great emerald that once had hung upon thebreast of Montezuma's daughter, and of many a princess before her, andat the sight of it her eyes glistened brightly as the gem, for thisQueen of ours loves such costly playthings. Indeed, had I so desired,I think that I might then and there have struck a bargain, and set thestone against a title; but I, who for many years had been the prince ofa great tribe, had no wish to be a knight. So I kissed the royal hand,and so tightly did it grip the gem within that the knuckle joints shonewhite, and I went my ways, coming back home to this my house by theWaveney on that same day.
Now the Queen's wish that I should set down the story of my liferemained in my mind, and for long I have desired to do it before lifeand story end together. The labour, indeed, is great to one unused tosuch tasks; but why should I fear labour who am so near to the holidayof death? I have seen things that no other Englishman has seen, whichare worthy to be recorded; my life has been most strange, many a time ithas pleased God to preserve it when all seemed lost, and this perchanceHe has done that the lesson of it might become known to others. Forthere is a lesson in it and in the things that I have seen, and it isthat no wrong can ever bring about a right, that wrong will breed wrongat last, and be it in man or people, will fall upon the brain thatthought it and the hand that wrought it.
Look now at the fate of Cortes--that great man whom I have known clothedwith power like a god. Nearly forty years ago, so I have heard, he diedpoor and disgraced in Spain; he, the conqueror--yes, and I have learnedalso that his son Don Martin has been put to the torture in that citywhich the father won with so great cruelties for Spain. Malinche, shewhom the Spaniards named Marina, the chief and best beloved of all thewomen of this same Cortes, foretold it to him in her anguish when afterall that had been, after she had so many times preserved him and hissoldiers to look upon the sun, at the last he deserted her, giving herin marriage to Don Juan Xaramillo. Look again at the fate of Marinaherself. Because she loved this man Cortes, or Malinche, as the Indiansnamed him after her, she brought evil on her native land; for withouther aid Tenoctitlan, or Mexico, as they call it now, had never bowedbeneath the yoke of Spain--yes, she forgot her honour in her passion.And what was her reward, what right came to her of her wrongdoing? Thiswas her reward at last: to be given away in marriage to another anda lesser man when her beauty waned, as a worn-out beast is sold to apoorer master.
Consider also the fate of those great peoples of the land of Anahuac.They did evil that good might come. They sacrificed the lives ofthousands to their false gods, that their wealth might increase, andpeace and prosperity be theirs throughout the generations. And now thetrue God has answered them. For wealth He has given them desolation, forpeace the sword of the Spaniard, for prosperity the rack and thetorment and the day of slavery. For this it was that they did sacrifice,offering their own children on the altars of Huitzel and of Tezcat.
And the Spaniards themselves, who in the name of mercy have wroughtcruelties greater than any that were done by the benighted Aztecs, whoin the name of Christ daily violate His law to the uttermost extreme,say shall they prosper, shall their evil-doing bring them welfare? I amold and cannot live to see the question answered, though even now itis in the way of answering. Yet I know that their wickedness shallfall upon their own heads, and I seem to see them, the proudest of thepeoples of the earth, bereft of fame and wealth and honour, a starvelingremnant happy in nothing save their past. What Drake began at GravelinesGod will finish in many another place and time, till at last Spain is ofno more account and lies as low as the empire of Montezuma lies to-day.
Thus it is in these great instances of which all the world may know, andthus it is even in the life of so humble a man as I, Thomas Wingfield.Heaven indeed has been merciful to me, giving me time to repent my sins;yet my sins have been visited on my head, on me who took His prerogativeof vengeance from the hand of the Most High. It is just, and because itis so I wish to set out the matter of my life's history that others maylearn from it. For many years this has been in my mind, as I have said,though to speak truth it was her Majesty the Queen who first set theseed. But only on this day, when I have heard for certain of the fate ofthe Armada, does it begin to grow, and who can say if ever it will cometo flower? For this tidings has stirred me strangely, bringing back myyouth and the deeds of love and war and wild adventure which I have beenmingled in, fighting for my own hand and for Guatemoc and the people ofthe Otomie against these same Spaniards, as they have not been broughtback for many years. Indeed, it seems to me, and this is no rare thingwith the aged, as though there in the far past my true life lay, and allthe rest were nothing but a dream.
From the window of the room wherein I write I can see the peacefulvalley of the Waveney. Beyond its stream are the common lands goldenwith gorse, the ruined castle, and the red roofs of Bungay town gatheredabout the tower of St. Mary's Church. Yonder far away are the king'sforests of Stowe and the fields of Flixton Abbey; to the right the steepbank is green with the Earsham oaks, to the left the fast marsh landsspotted with cattle stretch on to Beccles and Lowestoft, while behind memy gardens and orchards rise in terraces up the turfy hill that in olddays was known as the Earl's Vineyard. All these are about me, and yetin this hour they are as though they were not. For the valley of theWaveney I see the vale of Tenoctitlan, for the slopes of Stowe the snowyshapes of the volcans Popo and Iztac, for the spire of Earsham and thetowers of Ditchingham, of Bungay, and of Beccles, the soaring pyramidsof sacrifice gleaming with the sacred fires, and for the cattle in themeadows the horsemen of Cortes sweeping to war.
It comes back to me; that was life, the rest is but a dream. Once moreI feel young, and, should I be spared so long, I will set down the storyof my youth before I am laid in yonder churchyard and lost in the worldof dreams. Long ago I had begun it,
but it was only on last ChristmasDay that my dear wife died, and while she lived I knew that this taskwas better left undone. Indeed, to be frank, it was thus with my wife:She loved me, I believe, as few men have the fortune to be loved, andthere is much in my past that jarred upon this love of hers, moving herto a jealousy of the dead that was not the less deep because it was sogentle and so closely coupled with forgiveness. For she had a secretsorrow that ate her heart away, although she never spoke of it. But onechild was born to us, and this child died in infancy, nor for all herprayers did it please God to give her another, and indeed rememberingthe words of Otomie I did not expect that it would be so. Now she knewwell that yonder across the seas I had children whom I loved by anotherwife, and though they were long dead, must always love unalterably, andthis thought wrung her heart. That I had been the husband of anotherwoman she could forgive, but that this woman should have borne mechildren whose memory was still so dear, she could not forget if sheforgave it, she who was childless. Why it was so, being but a man, Icannot say; for who can know all the mystery of a loving woman's heart?But so it was. Once, indeed, we quarrelled on the matter; it was ouronly quarrel.
It chanced that when we had been married but two years, and our babe wassome few days buried in the churchyard of this parish of Ditchingham,I dreamed a very vivid dream as I slept one night at my wife's side.I dreamed that my dead children, the four of them, for the tallest ladbore in his arms my firstborn, that infant who died in the great siege,came to me as they had often come when I ruled the people of the Otomiein the City of Pines, and talked with me, giving me flowers and kissingmy hands. I looked upon their strength and beauty, and was proud atheart, and, in my dream, it seemed as though some great sorrow had beenlifted from my mind; as though these dear ones had been lost and nowwere found again. Ah! what misery is there like to this misery ofdreams, that can thus give us back our dead in mockery, and thendeparting, leave us with a keener woe?
Well, I dreamed on, talking with my children in my sleep and naming themby their beloved names, till at length I woke to look on emptiness, andknowing all my sorrow I sobbed aloud. Now it was early morning, and thelight of the August sun streamed through the window, but I, deemingthat my wife slept, still lay in the shadow of my dream as it were, andgroaned, murmuring the names of those whom I might never see again.It chanced, however, that she was awake, and had overheard those wordswhich I spoke with the dead, while I was yet asleep and after; andthough some of this talk was in the tongue of the Otomie, the most wasEnglish, and knowing the names of my children she guessed the purportof it all. Suddenly she sprang from the bed and stood over me, and therewas such anger in her eyes as I had never seen before nor have seensince, nor did it last long then, for presently indeed it was quenchedin tears.
'What is it, wife?' I asked astonished.
'It is hard,' she answered, 'that I must bear to listen to such talkfrom your lips, husband. Was it not enough that, when all men thoughtyou dead, I wore my youth away faithful to your memory? though howfaithful you were to mine you know best. Did I ever reproach you becauseyou had forgotten me, and wedded a savage woman in a distant land?'
'Never, dear wife, nor had I forgotten you as you know well; but whatI wonder at is that you should grow jealous now when all cause is donewith.'
'Cannot we be jealous of the dead? With the living we may cope, but whocan fight against the love which death has completed, sealing it forever and making it immortal! Still, THAT I forgive you, for against thiswoman I can hold my own, seeing that you were mine before you becamehers, and are mine after it. But with the children it is otherwise. Theyare hers and yours alone. I have no part nor lot in them, and whetherthey be dead or living I know well you love them always, and will lovethem beyond the grave if you may find them there. Already I grow old,who waited twenty years and more before I was your wife, and I shallgive you no other children. One I gave you, and God took it back lestI should be too happy; yet its name was not on your lips with thosestrange names. My dead babe is little to you, husband!'
Here she choked, bursting into tears; nor did I think it well to answerher that there was this difference in the matter, that whereas, withthe exception of one infant, those sons whom I had lost were almostadolescent, the babe she bore lived but sixty days.
Now when the Queen first put it in my mind to write down the history ofmy life, I remembered this outbreak of my beloved wife; and seeing thatI could write no true tale and leave out of it the story of her who wasalso my wife, Montezuma's daughter, Otomie, Princess of the Otomie, andof the children that she gave me, I let the matter lie. For I knew well,that though we spoke very rarely on the subject during all the manyyears we passed together, still it was always in Lily's mind; nor didher jealousy, being of the finer sort, abate at all with age, but rathergathered with the gathering days. That I should execute the task withoutthe knowledge of my wife would not have been possible, for till the verylast she watched over my every act, and, as I verily believe, divinedthe most of my thoughts.
And so we grew old together, peacefully, and side by side, speakingseldom of that great gap in my life when we were lost to each other andof all that then befell. At length the end came. My wife died suddenlyin her sleep in the eighty-seventh year of her age. I buried her on thesouth side of the church here, with sorrow indeed, but not with sorrowinconsolable, for I know that I must soon rejoin her, and those otherswhom I have loved.
There in that wide heaven are my mother and my sister and my sons;there are great Guatemoc my friend, last of the emperors, and many othercompanions in war who have preceded me to peace; there, too, though shedoubted of it, is Otomie the beautiful and proud. In the heaven whichI trust to reach, all the sins of my youth and the errors of my agenotwithstanding, it is told us there is no marrying and giving inmarriage; and this is well, for I do not know how my wives, Montezuma'sdaughter and the sweet English gentlewoman, would agree together were itotherwise.
And now to my task.