Clare Avery: A Story of the Spanish ArmadaHolt, Emily Sarah
History
Clare Avery: A Story of the Spanish Armada
Holt, Emily Sarah
Great Britain -- History -- Tudors, 1485-1603 -- Fiction; Historical fiction
But the other survivors of the shipwreck did not come off so easily. On
the day after it, one of the soldiers and one of the galley-slaves died.
The remaining galley-slave, a Moorish prisoner, very grave and silent,
and speaking little Spanish; the two sailors, of whom one was an
Italian; and one of the soldiers, were quartered in the glebe barn--the
rest in one of Sir Thomas Enville's barns. Two of the soldiers were
Pyrenees men, and spoke French. All of them, except the Moor and the
Italian, were possessed by abject terror, expecting to be immediately
killed, if not eaten. The Italian, who was no stranger to English
people, and into whose versatile mind nothing sank deep, was the only
blithe and cheerful man in the group. The Moor kept his feelings and
opinions to himself. But the others could utter nothing but
lamentations, "_Ay de mi_!" [alas for me] and "_Soy muerto_!"
[literally, "I am dead"--a common lamentation in Spain.] with mournful
vaticinations that their last hour was at hand, and that they would
never see Spain again. Sir Thomas Enville could just manage to make
himself understood by the Italian, and Mr Tremayne by the two
Pyreneans. No one else at Enville Court spoke any language but English.
But Mrs Rose, a Spanish lady's daughter, who had been accustomed to
speak Spanish for the first twenty years of her life; and Mrs Tremayne,
who had learned it from her; and Lysken Barnevelt, who had spoken it in
her childhood, and had kept herself in practice with Mrs Rose's help--
these three went in and out among the prisoners, interpreted for the
doctor, dressed the wounds, cheered the down-hearted men, and at last
persuaded them that Englishmen were not cannibals, and that it was not
certain they would all be hung immediately.
There was one person at Enville Court who would have given much to be a
fourth in the band of helpers. Clare was strongly disposed to envy her
friend Lysken, and to chafe against the bonds of conventionalism which
bound her own actions. She longed to be of some use in the world; to
till some corner of the vineyard marked out specially for her; to find
some one for whom, or something for which she was really wanted. Of
course, making and mending, carding and spinning, distilling and
preserving, were all of use: somebody must do them. But somebody, in
this case, meant anybody. It was not Clare who was necessary. And
Lysken, thought Clare, had deeper and higher work. She had to deal with
human hearts, while Clare dealt only with woollen and linen. Was there
no possibility that some other person could see to the woollen and
linen, and that Clare might be permitted to work with Lysken, and help
the human hearts as well?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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