Westward Ho!

Charles Kingsley

Description

Set sail for a rip-roaring, round-the-world adventure with Charles Kingsley's Westward Ho! The protagonist, intrepid adventurer Amyas Leigh, finds himself in the middle of a history-making expedition when he teams up with Sir Francis Drake on a trip to explore the Caribbean -- and cross swords with Spanish forces.

Sujets

• Historical fiction

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781776671557
• Langue: English

Extrait

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
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CHARLES KINGSLEY
 
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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 First published in 1855 Epub ISBN 978-1-77667-155-7 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77667-156-4 © 2016 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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Chapter I - How Mr. Oxenham Saw the White Bird Chapter II - How Amyas Came Home the First Time Chapter III - Of Two Gentlemen of Wales, and How They Hunted with the Hounds, and yetRan with the Deer Chapter IV - The Two Ways of Being Crost in Love Chapter V - Clovelly Court in the Olden Time Chapter VI - The Combes of the Far West Chapter VII - The True and Tragical History of Mr. John Oxenham of Plymouth Chapter VIII - How the Noble Brotherhood of the Rose was Founded Chapter IX - How Amyas Kept His Christmas Day Chapter X - How the Mayor of Bideford Baited His Hook with His Own Flesh Chapter XI - How Eustace Leigh Met the Pope's Legate Chapter XII - How Bideford Bridge Dined at Annery House Chapter XIII - How the Golden Hind Came Home Again Chapter XIV - How Salvation Yeo Slew the King of the Gubbings Chapter XV - How Mr. John Brimblecombe Understood the Nature of an Oath Chapter XVI - The Most Chivalrous Adventure of the Good Ship Rose Chapter XVII - How They Came to Barbados, and Found No Men Therein Chapter XVIII - How They Took the Pearls at Margarita Chapter XIX - What Befell at la Guayra Chapter XX - Spanish Bloodhounds and English Mastiffs Chapter XXI - How They Took the Communion Under the Tree at Higuerote Chapter XXII - The Inquisition in the Indies Chapter XXIII - The Banks of the Meta Chapter XXIV - How Amyas was Tempted of the Devil Chapter XXV - How They Took the Gold-Train Chapter XXVI - How They Took the Great Galleon Chapter XXVII - How Salvation Yeo Found His Little Maid Again Chapter XXVIII - How Amyas Came Home the Third Time Chapter XXIX - How the Virginia Fleet was Stopped by the Queen's Command Chapter XXX - How the Admiral John Hawkins Testified Against Croakers Chapter XXXI - The Great Armada Chapter XXXII - How Amyas Threw His Sword into the Sea Chapter XXXIII - How Amyas Let the Apple Fall Endnotes
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TO
THE RAJAH SIR JAMES BROOKE, K.C.B.
AND
GEORGE AUGUSTUS SELWYN, D.D.
BISHOP OF NEW ZEALAND
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
By one who (unknown to them) has no other method of expressing hisadmiration and reverence for their characters.
That type of English virtue, at once manful and godly, practical andenthusiastic, prudent and self-sacrificing, which he has tried to depictin these pages, they have exhibited in a form even purer and moreheroic than that in which he has drest it, and than that in which it wasexhibited by the worthies whom Elizabeth, without distinction of rank orage, gathered round her in the ever glorious wars of her great reign.
C. K.
FEBRUARY, 1855.
Chapter I - How Mr. Oxenham Saw the White Bird
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"The hollow oak our palace is, Our heritage the sea."
All who have travelled through the delicious scenery of North Devon mustneeds know the little white town of Bideford, which slopes upwards fromits broad tide-river paved with yellow sands, and many-arched old bridgewhere salmon wait for autumn floods, toward the pleasant upland on thewest. Above the town the hills close in, cushioned with deep oak woods,through which juts here and there a crag of fern-fringed slate; belowthey lower, and open more and more in softly rounded knolls, and fertilesquares of red and green, till they sink into the wide expanse of hazyflats, rich salt-marshes, and rolling sand-hills, where Torridge joinsher sister Taw, and both together flow quietly toward the broad surgesof the bar, and the everlasting thunder of the long Atlantic swell.Pleasantly the old town stands there, beneath its soft Italian sky,fanned day and night by the fresh ocean breeze, which forbids alike thekeen winter frosts, and the fierce thunder heats of the midland; andpleasantly it has stood there for now, perhaps, eight hundred yearssince the first Grenville, cousin of the Conqueror, returning from theconquest of South Wales, drew round him trusty Saxon serfs, and freeNorse rovers with their golden curls, and dark Silurian Britons fromthe Swansea shore, and all the mingled blood which still gives to theseaward folk of the next county their strength and intellect, and, evenin these levelling days, their peculiar beauty of face and form.
But at the time whereof I write, Bideford was not merely a pleasantcountry town, whose quay was haunted by a few coasting craft. It wasone of the chief ports of England; it furnished seven ships to fight theArmada: even more than a century afterwards, say the chroniclers, "itsent more vessels to the northern trade than any port in England, saving(strange juxtaposition!) London and Topsham," and was the centre of alocal civilization and enterprise, small perhaps compared with thevast efforts of the present day: but who dare despise the day of smallthings, if it has proved to be the dawn of mighty ones? And it is to thesea-life and labor of Bideford, and Dartmouth, and Topsham, and Plymouth(then a petty place), and many another little western town, that Englandowes the foundation of her naval and commercial glory. It was the menof Devon, the Drakes and Hawkins', Gilberts and Raleighs, Grenvilles andOxenhams, and a host more of "forgotten worthies," whom we shall learnone day to honor as they deserve, to whom she owes her commerce, hercolonies, her very existence. For had they not first crippled, by theirWest Indian raids, the ill-gotten resources of the Spaniard, and thencrushed his last huge effort in Britain's Salamis, the glorious fight of1588, what had we been by now but a popish appanage of a world-tyrannyas cruel as heathen Rome itself, and far more devilish?
It is in memory of these men, their voyages and their battles, theirfaith and their valor, their heroic lives and no less heroic deaths,that I write this book; and if now and then I shall seem to warm intoa style somewhat too stilted and pompous, let me be excused for mysubject's sake, fit rather to have been sung than said, and to haveproclaimed to all true English hearts, not as a novel but as an epic(which some man may yet gird himself to write), the same great messagewhich the songs of Troy, and the Persian wars, and the trophies ofMarathon and Salamis, spoke to the hearts of all true Greeks of old.
One bright summer's afternoon, in the year of grace 1575, a tall andfair boy came lingering along Bideford quay, in his scholar's gown,with satchel and slate in hand, watching wistfully the shipping and thesailors, till, just after he had passed the bottom of the High Street,he came opposite to one of the many taverns which looked out upon theriver. In the open bay window sat merchants and gentlemen, discoursingover their afternoon's draught of sack; and outside the door wasgathered a group of sailors, listening earnestly to some one who stoodin the midst. The boy, all alive for any sea-news, must needs go upto them, and take his place among the sailor-lads who were peeping andwhispering under the elbows of the men; and so came in for the followingspeech, delivered in a loud bold voice, with a strong Devonshire accent,and a fair sprinkling of oaths.
"If you don't believe me, go and see, or stay here and grow all overblue mould. I tell you, as I am a gentleman, I saw it with these eyes,and so did Salvation Yeo there, through a window in the lower room; andwe measured the heap, as I am a christened man, seventy foot long, tenfoot broad, and twelve foot high, of silver bars, and each bar betweena thirty and forty pound weight. And says Captain Drake: 'There, my ladsof Devon, I've brought you to the mouth of the world's treasure-house,and it's your own fault now if you don't sweep it out as empty as astock-fish.'"
"Why didn't you bring some of they home, then, Mr. Oxenham?"
"Why weren't you there to help to carry them? We would have brought'em away, safe enough, and young Drake and I had broke the door abroadalready, but Captain Drake goes off in a dead faint; and when we cameto look, he had a wound in his leg you might have laid three fingers in,and his boots were full of blood, and had been for an hour or more; butthe heart of him was that, that he never knew it till he dropped,and then his brother and I got him away to the boats, he kicking andstruggling, and bidding us let him go on with the fight, though everystep he took in the sand was in a pool of blood; and so we got off. Andtell me, ye sons of shotten herrings, wasn't it worth more to save himthan the dirty silver? for silver we can get again, brave boys: there'smore fish in the sea than ever came out of it, and more silver in Nombrede Dios than would pave all the streets in the west country: but of suchcaptains as Franky Drake, Heaven never makes but one at a time; and ifwe lose him, good-bye to England's luck, say I, and who don't agree, lethim choose his weapons, and I'm his man."
He who delivered this harangue was a tall and sturdy personage, with aflorid black-bearded face, and bold restless dark eyes, who leaned, withcrossed legs and arms akimbo, against the wall of the house; and seemedin the eyes of the s