Westward Ho! Or, The Voyages and Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, of Burrough, in the County of Devon, in the Reign of Her Most Glorious Majesty Queen ElizabethKingsley, Charles
History
Westward Ho! Or, The Voyages and Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, of Burrough, in the County of Devon, in the Reign of Her Most Glorious Majesty Queen Elizabeth
Kingsley, Charles
Great Britain -- History -- Elizabeth, 1558-1603 -- Fiction
“And go in charity with all mankind,” said Cary. “Give us your hand,
old fellow. If you are a Coffin, you were sawn out of no wishy-washy
elm-board, but right heart-of-oak. I am going, too, as Amyas here can
tell, to Ireland away, to cool my hot liver in a bog, like a Jack-hare
in March. Come, give us thy neif, and let us part in peace. I was minded
to have fought thee this day--”
“I should have been most happy, sir,” said Coffin.
--“But now I am all love and charity to mankind. Can I have the pleasure
of begging pardon of the world in general, and thee in particular? Does
any one wish to pull my nose; send me an errand; make me lend him five
pounds; ay, make me buy a horse of him, which will be as good as giving
him ten? Come along! Join hands all round, and swear eternal friendship,
as brothers of the sacred order of the--of what. Frank Leigh? Open thy
mouth, Daniel, and christen us!”
“The Rose!” said Frank quietly, seeing that his new love-philtre was
working well, and determined to strike while the iron was hot, and carry
the matter too far to carry it back again.
“The Rose!” cried Cary, catching hold of Coffin's hand with his right,
and Fortescue's with his left. “Come, Mr. Coffin! Bend, sturdy oak! 'Woe
to the stiffnecked and stout-hearted!' says Scripture.”
And somehow or other, whether it was Frank's chivalrous speech, or
Cary's fun, or Amyas's good wine, or the nobleness which lies in every
young lad's heart, if their elders will take the trouble to call it out,
the whole party came in to terms one by one, shook hands all round, and
vowed on the hilt of Amyas's sword to make fools of themselves no more,
at least by jealousy: but to stand by each other and by their lady-love,
and neither grudge nor grumble, let her dance with, flirt with, or marry
with whom she would; and in order that the honor of their peerless dame,
and the brotherhood which was named after her, might be spread through
all lands, and equal that of Angelica or Isonde of Brittany, they would
each go home, and ask their fathers' leave (easy enough to obtain in
those brave times) to go abroad wheresoever there were “good wars,” to
emulate there the courage and the courtesy of Walter Manny and Gonzalo
Fernandes, Bayard and Gaston de Foix. Why not? Sidney was the hero of
Europe at five-and-twenty; and why not they?
And Frank watched and listened with one of his quiet smiles (his eyes,
as some folks' do, smiled even when his lips were still), and only said:
“Gentlemen, be sure that you will never repent this day.”
“Repent?” said Cary. “I feel already as angelical as thou lookest, Saint
Silvertongue. What was it that sneezed?--the cat?”
“The lion, rather, by the roar of it,” said Amyas, making a dash at the
arras behind him. “Why, here is a doorway here! and--”
And rushing under the arras, through an open door behind, he returned,
dragging out by the head Mr. John Brimblecombe.
Who was Mr. John Brimblecombe?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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