"Oh sir, sir! young brains and happy ones have short memories; but old and sad brains too long ones often! Do you mind one that was with Mr.Oxenham, sir? A swearing reprobate he was, God forgive him, and hath forgiven him too, for His dear Son's sake--one, sir, that gave you a horn, a toy with a chart on it?""Soul alive!" cried Amyas, catching him by the hand; "and are you he? The horn? why, I have it still, and will keep it to my dying day, too.But where is Mr.Oxenham?""Yes, my good fellow, where is Mr.Oxenham?" asked Sir Richard, rising."You are somewhat over-hasty in welcoming your old acquaintance, Amyas, before we have heard from him whether he can give honest account of himself and of his captain.For there is more than one way by which sailors may come home without their captains, as poor Mr.Barker of Bristol found to his cost.God grant that there may have been no such traitorous dealing here.""Sir Richard Grenville, if I had been a guilty man to my noble captain, as I have to God, I had not come here this day to you, from whom villainy has never found favor, nor ever will; for I know your conditions well, sir; and trust in the Lord, that if you will be pleased to hear me, you shall know mine.""Thou art a well-spoken knave.We shall see.""My dear sir," said Amyas, in a whisper, "I will warrant this man guiltless.""I verily believe him to be; but this is too serious a matter to be left on guess.If he will be sworn--"Whereon the man, humbly enough, said, that if it would please Sir Richard, he would rather not be sworn.
"But it does not please me, rascal! Did I not warn thee, Amyas?""Sir," said the man, proudly, "God forbid that my word should not be as good as my oath: but it is against my conscience to be sworn.""What have we here? some fantastical Anabaptist, who is wiser than his teachers.""My conscience, sir--"
"The devil take it and thee! I never heard a man yet begin to prate of his conscience, but I knew that he was about to do something more than ordinarily cruel or false.""Sir," said the man, coolly enough, "do you sit here to judge me according to law, and yet contrary to the law swear profane oaths, for which a fine is provided?"Amyas expected an explosion: but Sir Richard pulled a shilling out and put it on the table."There--my fine is paid, sirrah, to the poor of Kilkhampton: but hearken thou all the same.If thou wilt not speak an oath, thou shalt speak on compulsion; for to Launceston gaol thou goest, there to answer for Mr.Oxenham's death, on suspicion whereof, and of mutiny causing it, I will attach thee and every soul of his crew that comes home.We have lost too many gallant captains of late by treachery of their crews, and he that will not clear himself on oath, must be held for guilty, and self-condemned.""My good fellow," said Amyas, who could not give up his belief in the man's honesty, "why, for such fantastical scruples, peril not only your life, but your honor, and Mr.Oxenham's also? For if you be examined by question, you may be forced by torment to say that which is not true.""Little fear of that, young sir!" answered he, with a grim smile;"I have had too much of the rack already, and the strappado too, to care much what man can do unto me.I would heartily that I thought it lawful to be sworn: but not so thinking, I can but submit to the cruelty of man; though I did expect more merciful things, as a most miserable and wrecked mariner, at the hands of one who hath himself seen God's ways in the sea, and His wonders in the great deep.Sir Richard Grenville, if you will hear my story, may God avenge on my head all my sins from my youth up until now, and cut me off from the blood of Christ, and, if it were possible, from the number of His elect, if I tell you one whit more or less than truth; and if not, I commend myself into the hands of God."Sir Richard smiled."Well, thou art a brave ass, and valiant, though an ass manifest.Dost thou not see, fellow, how thou hast sworn a ten-times bigger oath than ever I should have asked of thee? But this is the way with your Anabaptists, who by their very hatred of forms and ceremonies, show of how much account they think them, and then bind themselves out of their own fantastical self-will with far heavier burdens than ever the lawful authorities have laid on them for the sake of the commonweal.But what do they care for the commonweal, as long as they can save, as they fancy, each man his own dirty soul for himself? However, thou art sworn now with a vengeance; go on with thy tale: and first, who art thou, and whence?""Well, sir," said the man, quite unmoved by this last explosion;"my name is Salvation Yeo, born in Clovelly Street, in the year 1526, where my father exercised the mystery of a barber surgeon, and a preacher of the people since called Anabaptists, for which Ireturn humble thanks to God."
Sir Richard.--Fie! thou naughty knave; return thanks that thy father was an ass?
Yeo.--Nay, but because he was a barber surgeon; for I myself learnt a touch of that trade, and thereby saved my life, as I will tell presently.And I do think that a good mariner ought to have all knowledge of carnal and worldly cunning, even to tailoring and shoemaking, that he may be able to turn his hand to whatsoever may hap.
Sir Richard.--Well spoken, fellow: but let us have thy text without thy comments.Forwards!
Yeo.--Well, sir.I was bred to the sea from my youth, and was with Captain Hawkins in his three voyages, which he made to Guinea for negro slaves, and thence to the West Indies.
Sir Richard.--Then thrice thou wentest to a bad end, though Captain Hawkins be my good friend; and the last time to a bad end thou camest.
Yeo.--No denying that last, your worship: but as for the former, Idoubt--about the unlawfulness, I mean; being the negroes are of the children of Ham, who are cursed and reprobate, as Scripture declares, and their blackness testifies, being Satan's own livery;among whom therefore there can be none of the elect, wherefore the elect are not required to treat them as brethren.