Westward Ho! | Page 9

at the spot, he fancies, and almost hopes,
that the day may come when he shall have to do his duty against the
invader as boldly as the men of Devon did then. And past him, far
below, upon the soft southeastern breeze, the stately ships go sliding
out to sea. When shall he sail in them, and see the wonders of the deep?
And as he stands there with beating heart and kindling eye, the cool
breeze whistling through his long fair curls, he is a symbol, though he
knows it not, of brave young England longing to wing its way out of its
island prison, to discover and to traffic, to colonize and to civilize, until
no wind can sweep the earth which does not bear the echoes of an
English voice. Patience, young Amyas! Thou too shalt forth, and
westward ho, beyond thy wildest dreams; and see brave sights, and do
brave deeds, which no man has since the foundation of the world. Thou
too shalt face invaders stronger and more cruel far than Dane or
Norman, and bear thy part in that great Titan strife before the renown
of which the name of Salamis shall fade away!
Mr. Oxenham came that evening to supper as he had promised: but as
people supped in those days in much the same manner as they do now,
we may drop the thread of the story for a few hours, and take it up
again after supper is over.
"Come now, Dick Grenville, do thou talk the good man round, and I'll
warrant myself to talk round the good wife."
The personage whom Oxenham addressed thus familiarly answered by
a somewhat sarcastic smile, and, "Mr. Oxenham gives Dick Grenville"
(with just enough emphasis on the "Mr." and the "Dick," to hint that a
liberty had been taken with him) "overmuch credit with the men. Mr.
Oxenham's credit with fair ladies, none can doubt. Friend Leigh, is
Heard's great ship home yet from the Straits?"
The speaker, known well in those days as Sir Richard Grenville,
Granville, Greenvil, Greenfield, with two or three other variations, was
one of those truly heroical personages whom Providence, fitting always
the men to their age and their work, had sent upon the earth whereof it
takes right good care, not in England only, but in Spain and Italy, in

Germany and the Netherlands, and wherever, in short, great men and
great deeds were needed to lift the mediaeval world into the modern.
And, among all the heroic faces which the painters of that age have
preserved, none, perhaps, hardly excepting Shakespeare's or Spenser's,
Alva's or Farina's, is more heroic than that of Richard Grenville, as it
stands in Prince's "Worthies of Devon;" of a Spanish type, perhaps (or
more truly speaking, a Cornish), rather than an English, with just
enough of the British element in it to give delicacy to its massiveness.
The forehead and whole brain are of extraordinary loftiness, and
perfectly upright; the nose long, aquiline, and delicately pointed; the
mouth fringed with a short silky beard, small and ripe, yet firm as
granite, with just pout enough of the lower lip to give hint of that
capacity of noble indignation which lay hid under its usual courtly calm
and sweetness; if there be a defect in the face, it is that the eyes are
somewhat small, and close together, and the eyebrows, though
delicately arched, and, without a trace of peevishness, too closely
pressed down upon them, the complexion is dark, the figure tall and
graceful; altogether the likeness of a wise and gallant gentleman, lovely
to all good men, awful to all bad men; in whose presence none dare say
or do a mean or a ribald thing; whom brave men left, feeling
themselves nerved to do their duty better, while cowards slipped away,
as bats and owls before the sun. So he lived and moved, whether in the
Court of Elizabeth, giving his counsel among the wisest; or in the
streets of Bideford, capped alike by squire and merchant, shopkeeper
and sailor; or riding along the moorland roads between his houses of
Stow and Bideford, while every woman ran out to her door to look at
the great Sir Richard, the pride of North Devon; or, sitting there in the
low mullioned window at Burrough, with his cup of malmsey before
him, and the lute to which he had just been singing laid across his
knees, while the red western sun streamed in upon his high, bland
forehead, and soft curling locks; ever the same steadfast, God-fearing,
chivalrous man, conscious (as far as a soul so healthy could be
conscious) of the pride of beauty, and strength, and valor, and wisdom,
and a race and name which claimed direct descent from