I told that poor young minister of it when we were in the galleys together; and he said oaths were oaths, and keep it I must; and keep it I will, sir, if you'll but help me.""Have patience, man.God will take as good care of thy little maid as ever thou wilt.""I know it, sir.I know it: but faith's weak, sir! and oh! if she were bred up a Papist and an idolater; wouldn't her blood be on my head then, sir? Sooner than that, sooner than that, I'd be in the Inquisition again to-morrow, I would!""My good fellow, there are no adventures to the Indies forward now:
but if you want to fight Spaniards, here is a gentleman will show you the way.Amyas, take him with you to Ireland.If he has learnt half the lessons God has set him to learn, he ought to stand you in good stead."Yeo looked eagerly at the young giant.
"Will you have me, sir? There's few matters I can't turn my hand to: and maybe you'll be going to the Indies again, some day, eh?
and take me with you? I'd serve your turn well, though I say it, either for gunner or for pilot.I know every stone and tree from Nombre to Panama, and all the ports of both the seas.You'll never be content, I'll warrant, till you've had another turn along the gold coasts, will you now?"Amyas laughed, and nodded; and the bargain was concluded.
So out went Yeo to eat, and Amyas having received his despatches, got ready for his journey home.
"Go the short way over the moors, lad; and send back Cary's gray when you can.You must not lose an hour, but be ready to sail the moment the wind goes about."So they started: but as Amyas was getting into the saddle, he saw that there was some stir among the servants, who seemed to keep carefully out of Yeo's way, whispering and nodding mysteriously;and just as his foot was in the stirrup, Anthony, the old butler, plucked him back.
"Dear father alive, Mr.Amyas!" whispered he: "and you ben't going by the moor road all alone with that chap?""Why not, then? I'm too big for him to eat, I reckon.""Oh, Mr.Amyas! he's not right, I tell you; not company for a Christian--to go forth with creatures as has flames of fire in their inwards; 'tis temptation of Providence, indeed, then, it is.""Tale of a tub."
"Tale of a Christian, sir.There was two boys pig-minding, seed him at it down the hill, beside a maiden that was taken mazed (and no wonder, poor soul!) and lying in screeching asterisks now down to the mill--you ask as you go by--and saw the flames come out of the mouth of mun, and the smoke out of mun's nose like a vire-drake, and the roaring of mun like the roaring of ten thousand bulls.Oh, sir! and to go with he after dark over moor! 'Tis the devil's devices, sir, against you, because you'm going against his sarvants the Pope of Room and the Spaniard; and you'll be Pixy-led, sure as life, and locked into a bog, you will, and see mun vanish away to fire and brimstone, like a jack-o'-lantern.Oh, have a care, then, have a care!"And the old man wrung his hands, while Amyas, bursting with laughter, rode off down the park, with the unconscious Yeo at his stirrup, chatting away about the Indies, and delighting Amyas more and more by his shrewdness, high spirit, and rough eloquence.
They had gone ten miles or more; the day began to draw in, and the western wind to sweep more cold and cheerless every moment, when Amyas, knowing that there was not an inn hard by around for many a mile ahead, took a pull at a certain bottle which Lady Grenville had put into his holster, and then offered Yeo a pull also.
He declined; he had meat and drink too about him, Heaven be praised!