In the Days of Drake. Fletcher Joseph Smith

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Hull: thou wilt find a ship there, I doubt not. Hold, here are twelve shillings for thee. Humphrey, have him to the kitchen and give him a good meal ere he starts.”

      “Your honor,” said the sailor, “is a father and a brother to me. I shall not forget.”

      “Do thy duty,” said Sir Thurstan.

      So I took the man to the kitchen, and fed him, and soon he went away.

      “Young master,” said he, “if I can ever repay this kindness I will, yea, with interest. Pharaoh Nanjulian never forgets.”

      With that he went away, and we saw him no more.

      CHAPTER III.

      ROSE

      There being no disposition on my part to renew our differences, and none on his to lead up to an open rupture, my cousin Jasper Stapleton and I got on together very well, until we had reached the age of nineteen years, when a new and far more important matter of contention arose between us.

      Now, our first quarrel had arisen over the ultimate disposition of my uncle’s estates; our second was as to which should be lord over the heart and hand of a fair maiden. To both of us the second quarrel was far more serious than the first – which is a thing that will readily be understood by all young folks. It seemed to both of us that not all the broad acres of Beechcot, nay, of Yorkshire itself, were to be reckoned in comparison with the little hand of Mistress Rose Herrick.

      For by that time Mistress Rose had grown to be a fair and gracious maiden, whose golden hair, floating from under her dainty cap, was a dangerous snare for any hot-hearted lad’s thoughts to fall entangled in. So sweet and gracious was she, so delightful her conversation, so bewitching her eyes, that I marvel not even at this stretch of time that I then became her captive and slave for life. Nor do I marvel, either, that Jasper Stapleton was equally enslaved by her charms. It had indeed been wonderful if he or I had made any resistance to them.

      As to myself, the little blind god pierced my heart with his arrow at a very early stage. Indeed, I do not remember any period of my life when I did not love Rose Herrick more dearly than anything else in God’s fair world. To me she was all that is sweet and desirable, a companion whose company must needs make the path of life a primrose path; and, therefore, even when I was a lad, I looked forward to the time when I might take her hand in mine, and enter with her upon the highway which all of us must travel.

      However, when I was come to nineteen years of age, being then a tall and strapping lad, and somewhat grave withal, it came to my mind that I should find out for myself what feelings Rose had with regard to me, and therefore I began to seek her company, and to engage her in more constant conversation than we had hitherto enjoyed. And the effect of this was that my love for her, which had until then been of a placid nature, now became restless and unsatisfied, and longed to know whether it was to be answered with love or finally dismissed.

      Thus I became somewhat moody and taciturn, and took to wandering about the land by myself, by day or night, so that Sir Thurstan more than once asked me if I had turned poet or fallen in love. Now, both these things were true, for because I had fallen in love I had also turned poet; as, I suppose, every lover must. In sooth, I had scribbled lines and couplets, and here and there a song, to my sweet mistress, though I had never as yet mustered sufficient courage to show her what I had written. That, I think, is the way with all lovers who make rhymes. There is a satisfaction to them in the mere writing of them; and I doubt not that they often read over their verses, and in the reading find a certain keen and peculiar sort of pleasure which is not altogether unmixed with pain.

      Now it chanced that one day in the early spring of 1578 I had been wandering about the park of Beechcot, thinking of my passion and its object, and my thoughts as usual had clothed themselves in verses. Wherefore, when I again reached the house, I went into the library and wrote down my rhymes on paper, in order that I might put them away with my other compositions. I will write them down here from the copy I then made. It lies before me now, a yellow, time-stained sheet, and somehow it brings back to me the long-dead days of happiness which came before my wonderful adventure.

TO ROSE

      When I first beheld thee, dear,

      Day across the land was breaking,

      April skies were fine and clear

      And the world to life was waking;

      All was fair

      In earth and air:

      Spring lay lurking in the sedges:

      Suddenly

      I looked on thee

      And straight forgot the budding hedges.

      When I first beheld thee, sweet,

      Madcap Love came gayly flying

      Where the woods and meadows meet:

      Then I straightway fell a-sighing.

      Fair, I said,

      Are hills and glade

      And sweet the light with which they’re laden,

      But ah, to me,

      Nor flower nor tree

      Are half so sweet as yonder maiden.

      Thus when I beheld thee, love,

      Vanished quick my first devotion,

      Earth below and heaven above

      And the mystic, magic ocean

      Seemed to me

      No more to be.

      I had eyes for naught but thee, dear,

      With his dart

      Love pierced my heart

      And thou wert all in all to me, dear!

      Now, as I came to an end of writing these verses I was suddenly aware of someone standing at my side, and when I looked up, with anger and resentment that anyone should spy upon my actions, I saw my cousin Jasper at my elbow, staring at the two words, “To Rose,” which headed my composition. I sprang to my feet and faced him.

      “That is like you, cousin,” said I, striving to master my anger, “to act the spy upon a man.”

      “As you please,” he answered. “I care what no man thinks of my actions. But there,” pointing to the paper, “is proof of what I have long suspected. Humphrey, you are in love with Mistress Rose Herrick!”

      “What if I am?” said I.

      “Nothing, but that I also am in love with her, and mean to win her,” he replied.

      After that there was silence.

      “We cannot both have her,” said I at last.

      “True,” said he. “She shall be mine.”

      “Not if I can prevent it, cousin. At any rate she has the principal say in this matter.”

      “Thou hast not spoken to her, Humphrey?”

      “What is that to thee, cousin? But I have not.”

      “Humphrey, thou wilt heir our uncle’s lands. Thou hast robbed me of my share in them. I will not be robbed of my love. Pish! do not stay me. Thou art hot-tempered and boyish, but I am cold as an icicle. It is men like me whose love is deep and determined, and therefore I swear thou shalt not come between me and Rose Herrick.”

      I watched him closely, and saw that he valued nothing of land or money as he valued his passion, and that he would stay at nothing

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