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
“I'll come, I'll come, and stand within call, to be sure. Only do ye
mind this, dear soul alive, not to goo telling a crumb about mun, noo,
not for the world, or yu'll see naught at all, indeed, now. And beside,
there's a noxious business grow'd up against me up to Chapel there; and
I hear tell how Mr. Leigh saith I shall to Exeter gaol for a witch--did
ye ever hear the likes?--because his groom Jan saith I overlooked
mun--the Papist dog! And now never he nor th' owld Father Francis goo by
me without a spetting, and saying of their Ayes and Malificas--I do
know what their Rooman Latin do mane, zo well as ever they, I du!--and a
making o' their charms and incantations to their saints and idols! They
be mortal feared of witches, they Papists, and mortal hard on 'em, even
on a pure body like me, that doth a bit in the white way; 'case why you
see, dear life,” said she, with one of her humorous twinkles, “tu to a
trade do never agree. Do ye try my bit of a charm, now; do ye!”
Rose could not resist the temptation; and between them both the charm
was agreed on, and the next night was fixed for its trial, on the
payment of certain current coins of the realm (for Lucy, of course,
must live by her trade); and slipping a tester into the dame's hand as
earnest, Rose went away home, and got there in safety.
But in the meanwhile, at the very hour that Eustace had been prosecuting
his suit in the lane at Moorwinstow, a very different scene was being
enacted in Mrs. Leigh's room at Burrough.
For the night before, Amyas, as he was going to bed, heard his brother
Frank in the next room tune his lute, and then begin to sing. And
both their windows being open, and only a thin partition between the
chambers, Amyas's admiring ears came in for every word of the following
canzonet, sung in that delicate and mellow tenor voice for which Frank
was famed among all fair ladies:--
“Ah, tyrant Love, Megaera's serpents bearing,
Why thus requite my sighs with venom'd smart?
Ah, ruthless dove, the vulture's talons wearing,
Why flesh them, traitress, in this faithful heart?
Is this my meed? Must dragons' teeth alone
In Venus' lawns by lovers' hands be sown?
“Nay, gentlest Cupid; 'twas my pride undid me.
Nay, guiltless dove; by mine own wound I fell.
To worship, not to wed, Celestials bid me:
I dreamt to mate in heaven, and wake in hell;
Forever doom'd, Ixion-like, to reel
On mine own passions' ever-burning wheel.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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