CHAPTER X
HOW THE MAYOR OF BIDEFORD BAITED HIS HOOK WITH HIS OWN FLESH
"And therewith he blent, and cried ha! As though he had been stricken to the harte."
Palamon and Arcite.
So it befell to Chaucer's knight in prison; and so it befell also to DonGuzman; and it befell on this wise.
He settled down quietly enough at Bideford on his parole, in betterquarters than he had occupied for many a day, and took things as theycame, like a true soldier of fortune; till, after he had been withGrenville hardly a month, old Salterne the Mayor came to supper.
Now Don Guzman, however much he might be puzzled at first at our strangeEnglish ways of asking burghers and such low-bred folk to eat and drinkabove the salt, in the company of noble persons, was quite gentlemanenough to know that Richard Grenville was gentleman enough to do onlywhat was correct, and according to the customs and proprieties. So aftershrugging the shoulders of his spirit, he submitted to eat and drink atthe same board with a tradesman who sat at a desk, and made up ledgers,and took apprentices; and hearing him talk with Grenville neitherunwisely nor in a vulgar fashion, actually before the evening was outcondescended to exchange words with him himself. Whereon he found hima very prudent and courteous person, quite aware of the Spaniard'ssuperior rank, and making him feel in every sentence that he was awarethereof; and yet holding his own opinion, and asserting his own rightsas a wise elder in a fashion which the Spaniard had only seen beforeamong the merchant princes of Genoa and Venice.
At the end of supper, Salterne asked Grenville to do his humble roof thehonor, etc. etc., of supping with him the next evening, and then turningto the Don, said quite frankly, that he knew how great a condescensionit would be on the part of a nobleman of Spain to sit at the board ofa simple merchant: but that if the Spaniard deigned to do him sucha favor, he would find that the cheer was fit enough for any rank,whatsoever the company might be; which invitation Don Guzman, being onthe whole glad enough of anything to amuse him, graciously condescendedto accept, and gained thereby an excellent supper, and, if he had chosento drink it, much good wine.
Now Mr. Salterne was, of course, as a wise merchant, as ready as any manfor an adventure to foreign parts, as was afterwards proved by his greatexertions in the settlement of Virginia; and he was, therefore, equallyready to rack the brains of any guest whom he suspected of knowinganything concerning strange lands; and so he thought no shame, first totry to loose his guest's tongue by much good sack, and next, to ask himprudent and well-concocted questions concerning the Spanish Main, Peru,the Moluccas, China, the Indies, and all parts.
The first of which schemes failed; for the Spaniard was as abstemiousas any monk, and drank little but water; the second succeeded not overwell, for the Spaniard was as cunning as any fox, and answered littlebut wind.
In the midst of which tongue-fence in came the Rose of Torridge, lookingas beautiful as usual; and hearing what they were upon, added, artlesslyenough, her questions to her father's: to her Don Guzman could not butanswer; and without revealing any very important commercial secrets,gave his host and his host's daughter a very amusing evening.
Now little Eros, though spirits like Frank Leigh's may choose to callhim (as, perhaps, he really is to them) the eldest of the gods, andthe son of Jove and Venus, yet is reported by other equally goodauthorities, as Burton has set forth in his "Anatomy of Melancholy," tobe after all only the child of idleness and fulness of bread. To whichscandalous calumny the thoughts of Don Guzman's heart gave at least acertain color; for he being idle (as captives needs must be), and alsofull of bread (for Sir Richard kept a very good table), had alreadylooked round for mere amusement's sake after some one with whom to fallin love. Lady Grenville, as nearest, was, I blush to say, thought offirst; but the Spaniard was a man of honor, and Sir Richard his host; sohe put away from his mind (with a self-denial on which he plumed himselfmuch) the pleasure of a chase equally exciting to his pride and his loveof danger. As for the sinfulness of the said chase, he of course thoughtno more of that than other Southern Europeans did then, or than (I blushagain to have to say it) the English did afterwards in the days of theStuarts. Nevertheless, he had put Lady Grenville out of his mind; and soleft room to take Rose Salterne into it, not with any distinct purposeof wronging her: but, as I said before, half to amuse himself, and half,too, because he could not help it. For there was an innocent freshnessabout the Rose of Torridge, fond as she was of being admired, which wasnew to him and most attractive. "The train of the peacock," as hesaid to himself, "and yet the heart of the dove," made so charming acombination, that if he could have persuaded her to love no one but him,perhaps he might become fool enough to love no one but her. And at thatthought he was seized with a very panic of prudence, and resolved tokeep out of her way; and yet the days ran slowly, and Lady Grenvillewhen at home was stupid enough to talk and think about nothing but herhusband; and when she went to Stow, and left the Don alone in one cornerof the great house at Bideford, what could he do but lounge down to thebutt-gardens to show off his fine black cloak and fine black feather,see the shooting, have a game or two of rackets with the youngsters, agame or two of bowls with the elders, and get himself invited home tosupper by Mr. Salterne?
And there, of course, he had it all his own way, and ruled the roast(which he was fond enough of doing) right royally, not only on accountof his rank, but because he had something to say worth hearing, as atravelled man. For those times were the day-dawn of English commerce;and not a merchant in Bideford, or in all England, but had hisimagination all on fire with projects of discoveries, companies,privileges, patents, and settlements; with gallant rivalry of the braveadventures of Sir Edward Osborne and his new London Company of TurkeyMerchants; with the privileges just granted by the Sultan Murad Khanto the English; with the worthy Levant voyages of Roger Bodenham inthe great bark Aucher, and of John Fox, and Lawrence Aldersey, and JohnRule; and with hopes from the vast door for Mediterranean trade, whichthe crushing of the Venetian power at Famagusta in Cyprus, and thealliance made between Elizabeth and the Grand Turk, had just thrownopen. So not a word could fall from the Spaniard about the Mediterraneanbut took root at once in right fertile soil. Besides, Master EdmundHogan had been on a successful embassy to the Emperor of Morocco; JohnHawkins and George Fenner had been to Guinea (and with the latter Mr.Walter Wren, a Bideford man), and had traded there for musk and civet,gold and grain; and African news was becoming almost as valuable as WestIndian. Moreover, but two months before had gone from London CaptainHare in the bark Minion, for Brazil, and a company of adventurers withhim, with Sheffield hardware, and "Devonshire and Northern kersies,"hollands and "Manchester cottons," for there was a great opening forEnglish goods by the help of one John Whithall, who had married aSpanish heiress, and had an ingenio and slaves in Santos. (Don't smile,reader, or despise the day of small things, and those who sowed the seedwhereof you reap the mighty harvest.) In the meanwhile, Drake had provednot merely the possibility of plundering the American coasts, butof establishing an East Indian trade; Frobisher and Davis, worthyforefathers of our Parrys and Franklins, had begun to bore their wayupward through the Northern ice, in search of a passage to China whichshould avoid the dangers of the Spanish seas; and Anthony Jenkinson, notthe least of English travellers, had, in six-and-twenty years of travelin behalf of the Muscovite Company, penetrated into not merely Russiaand the Levant, but Persia and Armenia, Bokhara, Tartary, Siberia, andthose waste Arctic shores where, thirty years before, the brave Sir HughWilloughby,
"In Arzina caught, Perished with all his crew."
Everywhere English commerce, under the genial sunshine of Elizabeth'swise rule, was spreading and taking root; and as Don Guzman talkedwith his new friends, he soon saw (for he was shrewd enough) that theybelonged to a race which must be exterminated if Spain intended tobecome (as she did intend) the mistress of the world; and that it wasnot enough for Spain to have seized in the Pope's name t
he whole newworld, and claimed the exclusive right to sail the seas of America; notenough to have crushed the Hollanders; not enough to have degraded theVenetians into her bankers, and the Genoese into her mercenaries; notenough to have incorporated into herself, with the kingdom of Portugal,the whole East Indian trade of Portugal, while these fierce islandersremained to assert, with cunning policy and texts of Scripture, and, ifthey failed, with sharp shot and cold steel, free seas and free tradefor all the nations upon earth. He saw it, and his countrymen saw ittoo: and therefore the Spanish Armada came: but of that hereafter. AndDon Guzman knew also, by hard experience, that these same islanders, whosat in Salterne's parlor, talking broad Devon through their noses, wereno mere counters of money and hucksters of goods: but men who, thoughthey thoroughly hated fighting, and loved making money instead, couldfight, upon occasion, after a very dogged and terrible fashion, as wellas the bluest blood in Spain; and who sent out their merchant shipsarmed up to the teeth, and filled with men who had been trained fromchildhood to use those arms, and had orders to use them without mercyif either Spaniard, Portugal, or other created being dared to stop theirmoney-making. And one evening he waxed quite mad, when, after havingcivilly enough hinted that if Englishmen came where they had no right tocome, they might find themselves sent back again, he was answered by avolley of--
"We'll see that, sir."
"Depends on who says 'No right.'"
"You found might right," said another, "when you claimed the Indianseas; we may find right might when we try them."
"Try them, then, gentlemen, by all means, if it shall so please yourworships; and find the sacred flag of Spain as invincible as ever wasthe Roman eagle."
"We have, sir. Did you ever hear of Francis Drake?"
"Or of George Fenner and the Portugals at the Azores, one againstseven?"
"Or of John Hawkins, at St. Juan d'Ulloa?"
"You are insolent burghers," said Don Guzman, and rose to go.
"Sir," said old Salterne, "as you say, we are burghers and plain men,and some of us have forgotten ourselves a little, perhaps; we must begyou to forgive our want of manners, and to put it down to the strengthof my wine; for insolent we never meant to be, especially to a noblegentleman and a foreigner."
But the Don would not be pacified; and walked out, calling himselfan ass and a blinkard for having demeaned himself to such a company,forgetting that he had brought it on himself.
Salterne (prompted by the great devil Mammon) came up to him next day,and begged pardon again; promising, moreover, that none of those who hadbeen so rude should be henceforth asked to meet him, if he would deignto honor his house once more. And the Don actually was appeased, andwent there the very next evening, sneering at himself the whole time forgoing.
"Fool that I am! that girl has bewitched me, I believe. Go I must, andeat my share of dirt, for her sake."
So he went; and, cunningly enough, hinted to old Salterne that hehad taken such a fancy to him, and felt so bound by his courtesy andhospitality, that he might not object to tell him things which he wouldnot mention to every one; for that the Spaniards were not jealous ofsingle traders, but of any general attempt to deprive them of theirhard-earned wealth: that, however, in the meanwhile, there were plentyof opportunities for one man here and there to enrich himself, etc.
Old Salterne, shrewd as he was, had his weak point, and the Spaniard hadtouched it; and delighted at this opportunity of learning the mysteriesof the Spanish monopoly, he often actually set Rose on to draw out theDon, without a fear (so blind does money make men) lest she might beherself drawn in. For, first, he held it as impossible that she wouldthink of marrying a Popish Spaniard as of marrying the man in the moon;and, next, as impossible that he would think of marrying a burgher'sdaughter as of marrying a negress; and trusted that the religion of theone, and the family pride of the other, would keep them as separate asbeings of two different species. And as for love without marriage, ifsuch a possibility ever crossed him, the thought was rendered absurd;on Rose's part by her virtue, on which the old roan (and rightly) wouldhave staked every farthing he had on earth; and on the Don's part, by acertain human fondness for the continuity of the carotid artery and theparts adjoining, for which (and that not altogether justly, seeingthat Don Guzman cared as little for his own life as he did for hisneighbor's) Mr. Salterne gave him credit. And so it came to pass, thatfor weeks and months the merchant's house was the Don's favorite haunt,and he saw the Rose of Torridge daily, and the Rose of Torridge heardhim.
And as for her, poor child, she had never seen such a man. He had, orseemed to have, all the high-bred grace of Frank, and yet he was cast ina manlier mould; he had just enough of his nation's proud self-assertionto make a woman bow before him as before a superior, and yet tact enoughto let it very seldom degenerate into that boastfulness of which theSpaniards were then so often and so justly accused. He had marvels totell by flood and field as many and more than Amyas; and he toldthem with a grace and an eloquence of which modest, simple, old Amyaspossessed nothing. Besides, he was on the spot, and the Leighs were not,nor indeed were any of her old lovers; and what could she do but amuseherself with the only person who came to hand?
So thought, in time, more ladies than she; for the country, the north ofit at least, was all but bare just then of young gallants, what with theNetherland wars and the Irish wars; and the Spaniard became soon welcomeat every house for many a mile round, and made use of his welcome sofreely, and received so much unwonted attention from fair young dames,that his head might have been a little turned, and Rose Salterne havethereby escaped, had not Sir Richard delicately given him to understandthat in spite of the free and easy manners of English ladies, brotherswere just as jealous, and ladies' honors at least as inexpugnable, asin the land of demureness and duennas. Don Guzman took the hint wellenough, and kept on good terms with the country gentlemen as with theirdaughters; and to tell the truth, the cunning soldier of fortune foundhis account in being intimate with all the ladies he could, in order toprevent old Salterne from fancying that he had any peculiar predilectionfor Mistress Rose.
Nevertheless, Mr. Salterne's parlor being nearest to him, still remainedhis most common haunt; where, while he discoursed for hours about
"Antres vast and deserts idle, And of the cannibals that each other eat, Of Anthropophagi, and men whose heads Do grow beneath their shoulders,"
to the boundless satisfaction of poor Rose's fancy, he took care toseason his discourse with scraps of mercantile information, which keptthe old merchant always expectant and hankering for more, and made itworth his while to ask the Spaniard in again and again.
And his stories, certainly, were worth hearing. He seemed to have beeneverywhere, and to have seen everything: born in Peru, and sent home toSpain at ten years old; brought up in Italy; a soldier in the Levant; anadventurer to the East Indies; again in America, first in the islands,and then in Mexico. Then back again to Spain, and thence to Rome, andthence to Ireland. Shipwrecked; captive among savages; looking down thecraters of volcanoes; hanging about all the courts of Europe; fightingTurks, Indians, lions, elephants, alligators, and what not? Atfive-and-thirty he had seen enough for three lives, and knew how to makethe best of what he had seen.
He had shared, as a lad, in the horrors of the memorable siege ofFamagusta, and had escaped, he hardly knew himself how, from the handsof the victorious Turks, and from the certainty (if he escaped beingflayed alive or impaled, as most of the captive officers were) of endinghis life as a Janissary at the Sultan's court. He had been at the Battleof the Three Kings; had seen Stukely borne down by a hundred lances,unconquered even in death; and had held upon his knee the head of thedying King of Portugal.
And now, as he said to Rose one evening, what had he left on earth, buta heart trampled as hard as the pavement? Whom had he to love? Who lovedhim? He had nothing for which to live but fame: and even that was deniedto him, a prisoner in a foreign land.
Had he no kindred, then? asked
pitying Rose.
"My two sisters are in a convent;--they had neither money nor beauty;so they are dead to me. My brother is a Jesuit, so he is dead to me. Myfather fell by the hands of Indians in Mexico; my mother, a pennilesswidow, is companion, duenna--whatsoever they may choose to callit--carrying fans and lapdogs for some princess or other there inSeville, of no better blood than herself; and I--devil! I have lost evenmy sword--and so fares the house of De Soto."
Don Guzman, of course, intended to be pitied, and pitied he wasaccordingly. And then he would turn the conversation, and begin tellingItalian stories, after the Italian fashion, according to his auditory:the pathetic ones when Rose was present, the racy ones when she wasabsent; so that Rose had wept over the sorrows of Juliet and Desdemona,and over many another moving tale, long before they were ever enactedon an English stage, and the ribs of the Bideford worthies had shaken tomany a jest which Cinthio and Bandello's ghosts must come and make forthemselves over again if they wish them to be remembered, for I shalllend them no shove toward immortality.
And so on, and so on. What need of more words? Before a year was out,Rose Salterne was far more in love with Don Guzman than he with her; andboth suspected each other's mind, though neither hinted at the truth;she from fear, and he, to tell the truth, from sheer Spanish pride ofblood. For he soon began to find out that he must compromise that bloodby marrying the heretic burgher's daughter, or all his labor would bethrown away.
He had seen with much astonishment, and then practised with muchpleasure, that graceful old English fashion of saluting every lady onthe cheek at meeting, which (like the old Dutch fashion of asking youngladies out to feasts without their mothers) used to give such cause ofbrutal calumny and scandal to the coarse minds of Romish visitors fromthe Continent; and he had seen, too, fuming with jealous rage, more thanone Bideford burgher, redolent of onions, profane in that way the velvetcheek of Rose Salterne.
So, one day, he offered his salute in like wise; but he did it when shewas alone; for something within (perhaps a guilty conscience) whisperedthat it might be hardly politic to make the proffer in her father'spresence: however, to his astonishment, he received a prompt thoughquiet rebuff.
"No, sir; you should know that my cheek is not for you."
"Why," said he, stifling his anger, "it seems free enough to everycounter-jumper in the town!"
Was it love, or simple innocence, which made her answer apologetically?
"True, Don Guzman; but they are my equals."
"And I?"
"You are a nobleman, sir; and should recollect that you are one."
"Well," said he, forcing a sneer, "it is a strange taste to prefer theshopkeeper!"
"Prefer?" said she, forcing a laugh in her turn; "it is a mere formamong us. They are nothing to me, I can tell you."
"And I, then, less than nothing?"
Rose turned very red; but she had nerve to answer--
"And why should you be anything to me? You have condescended too much,sir, already to us, in giving us many a--many a pleasant evening. Youmust condescend no further. You wrong yourself, sir, and me too. No,sir; not a step nearer!--I will not! A salute between equals meansnothing: but between you and me--I vow, sir, if you do not leave me thismoment, I will complain to my father."
"Do so, madam! I care as little for your father's anger, as you for mymisery."
"Cruel!" cried Rose, trembling from head to foot.
"I love you, madam!" cried he, throwing himself at her feet. "I adoreyou! Never mention differences of rank to me more; for I have forgottenthem; forgotten all but love, all but you, madam! My light, my lodestar,my princess, my goddess! You see where my pride is gone; remember Iplead as a suppliant, a beggar--though one who may be one day a prince,a king! ay, and a prince now, a very Lucifer of pride to all except toyou; to you a wretch who grovels at your feet, and cries, 'Have mercyon me, on my loneliness, my homelessness, my friendlessness.' Ah, Rose(madam I should have said, forgive the madness of my passion), you knownot the heart which you break. Cold Northerns, you little dream how aSpaniard can love. Love? Worship, rather; as I worship you, madam; asI bless the captivity which brought me the sight of you, and the ruinwhich first made me rich. Is it possible, saints and Virgin! do my owntears deceive my eyes, or are there tears, too, in those radiant orbs?"
"Go, sir!" cried poor Rose, recovering herself suddenly; "and let menever see you more." And, as a last chance for life, she darted out ofthe room.
"Your slave obeys you, madam, and kisses your hands and feet foreverand a day," said the cunning Spaniard, and drawing himself up, walkedserenely out of the house; while she, poor fool, peeped after him outof her window upstairs, and her heart sank within her as she watched hisjaunty and careless air.
How much of that rhapsody of his was honest, how much premeditated, Icannot tell: though she, poor child, began to fancy that it was all aset speech, when she found that he had really taken her at her word, andset foot no more within her father's house. So she reproached herselffor the cruelest of women; settled, that if he died, she should be hismurderess; watched for him to pass at the window, in hopes that he mightlook up, and then hid herself in terror the moment he appeared roundthe corner; and so forth, and so forth:--one love-making is very likeanother, and has been so, I suppose, since that first blessed marriagein Paradise, when Adam and Eve made no love at all, but found itready-made for them from heaven; and really it is fiddling while Romeis burning, to spend more pages over the sorrows of poor little RoseSalterne, while the destinies of Europe are hanging on the marriagebetween Elizabeth and Anjou: and Sir Humphrey Gilbert is stirring heavenand earth, and Devonshire, of course, as the most important portionof the said earth, to carry out his dormant patent, which will give toEngland in due time (we are not jesting now) Newfoundland, Nova Scotia,and Canada, and the Northern States; and to Humphrey Gilbert himselfsomething better than a new world, namely another world, and a crown ofglory therein which never fades away.