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
Parsons, who, though a vulgar bully, was no coward, supported the
character of Mr. Evan Morgans well enough; and he would have really
enjoyed himself, had he not been in agonies of fear lest those precious
saddle-bags in front of him should break from their lashings, and
rolling to the earth, expose to the hoofs of heretic horses, perhaps to
the gaze of heretic eyes, such a cargo of bulls, dispensations, secret
correspondences, seditious tracts, and so forth, that at the very
thought of their being seen, his head felt loose upon his shoulders. But
the future martyr behind him, Mr. Morgan Evans, gave himself up at once
to abject despair, and as he bumped and rolled along, sought vainly for
comfort in professional ejaculations in the Latin tongue.
“Mater intemerata! Eripe me e--Ugh! I am down! Adhaesit pavimento
venter!--No! I am not! El dilectum tuum e potestate canis--Ah! Audisti
me inter cornua unicornium! Put this, too, down in--ugh!--thy account in
favor of my poor--oh, sharpness of this saddle! Oh, whither, barbarous
islanders!”
Now riding on his quarter, not in the rough track-way like a cockney,
but through the soft heather like a sportsman, was a very gallant knight
whom we all know well by this time, Richard Grenville by name; who had
made Mr. Cary and the rest his guests the night before, and then ridden
out with them at five o'clock that morning, after the wholesome early
ways of the time, to rouse a well-known stag in the glens at Buckish, by
help of Mr. Coffin's hounds from Portledge. Who being as good a Latiner
as Campian's self, and overhearing both the scraps of psalm and the
“barbarous islanders,” pushed his horse alongside of Mr. Eustace
Leigh, and at the first check said, with two low bows towards the two
strangers--
“I hope Mr. Leigh will do me the honor of introducing me to his guests.
I should be sorry, and Mr. Cary also, that any gentle strangers should
become neighbors of ours, even for a day, without our knowing who they
are who honor our western Thule with a visit; and showing them ourselves
all due requital for the compliment of their presence.”
After which, the only thing which poor Eustace could do (especially as
it was spoken loud enough for all bystanders), was to introduce in due
form Mr. Evan Morgans and Mr. Morgan Evans, who, hearing the name, and,
what was worse, seeing the terrible face with its quiet searching eye,
felt like a brace of partridge-poults cowering in the stubble, with a
hawk hanging ten feet over their heads.
“Gentlemen,” said Sir Richard blandly, cap in hand, “I fear that your
mails must have been somewhat in your way in this unexpected gallop. If
you will permit my groom, who is behind, to disencumber you of them
and carry them to Chapel, you will both confer an honor on me, and be
enabled yourselves to see the mort more pleasantly.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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