Westward Ho! | Page 5

than the dirty silver? for silver we can get again, brave boys:
there's more fish in the sea than ever came out of it, and more silver in

Nombre de Dios than would pave all the streets in the west country: but
of such captains as Franky Drake, Heaven never makes but one at a
time; and if we lose him, good-bye to England's luck, say I, and who
don't agree, let him choose his weapons, and I'm his man."
He who delivered this harangue was a tall and sturdy personage, with a
florid black-bearded face, and bold restless dark eyes, who leaned, with
crossed legs and arms akimbo, against the wall of the house; and
seemed in the eyes of the schoolboy a very magnifico, some prince or
duke at least. He was dressed (contrary to all sumptuary laws of the
time) in a suit of crimson velvet, a little the worse, perhaps, for wear;
by his side were a long Spanish rapier and a brace of daggers, gaudy
enough about the hilts; his fingers sparkled with rings; he had two or
three gold chains about his neck, and large earrings in his ears, behind
one of which a red rose was stuck jauntily enough among the glossy
black curls; on his head was a broad velvet Spanish hat, in which
instead of a feather was fastened with a great gold clasp a whole Quezal
bird, whose gorgeous plumage of fretted golden green shone like one
entire precious stone. As he finished his speech, he took off the said hat,
and looking at the bird in it--
"Look ye, my lads, did you ever see such a fowl as that before? That's
the bird which the old Indian kings of Mexico let no one wear but their
own selves; and therefore I wear it,--I, John Oxenham of South Tawton,
for a sign to all brave lads of Devon, that as the Spaniards are the
masters of the Indians, we're the masters of the Spaniards:" and he
replaced his hat.
A murmur of applause followed: but one hinted that he "doubted the
Spaniards were too many for them."
"Too many? How many men did we take Nombre de Dios with?
Seventy- three were we, and no more when we sailed out of Plymouth
Sound; and before we saw the Spanish Main, half were gastados, used
up, as the Dons say, with the scurvy; and in Port Pheasant Captain
Rawse of Cowes fell in with us, and that gave us some thirty hands
more; and with that handful, my lads, only fifty-three in all, we picked
the lock of the new world! And whom did we lose but our trumpeter,

who stood braying like an ass in the middle of the square, instead of
taking care of his neck like a Christian? I tell you, those Spaniards are
rank cowards, as all bullies are. They pray to a woman, the idolatrous
rascals! and no wonder they fight like women."
"You'm right, captain," sang out a tall gaunt fellow who stood close to
him; "one westcountry-man can fight two easterlings, and an easterling
can beat three Dons any day. Eh! my lads of Devon?
"For O! it's the herrings and the good brown beef, And the cider and the
cream so white; O! they are the making of the jolly Devon lads, For to
play, and eke to fight."
"Come," said Oxenham, "come along! Who lists? who lists? who'll
make his fortune?
"Oh, who will join, jolly mariners all? And who will join, says he, O!
To fill his pockets with the good red goold, By sailing on the sea, O!"
"Who'll list?" cried the gaunt man again; "now's your time! We've got
forty men to Plymouth now, ready to sail the minute we get back, and
we want a dozen out of you Bideford men, and just a boy or two, and
then we'm off and away, and make our fortunes, or go to heaven.
"Our bodies in the sea so deep, Our souls in heaven to rest! Where
valiant seamen, one and all, Hereafter shall be blest!"
"Now," said Oxenham, "you won't let the Plymouth men say that the
Bideford men daren't follow them? North Devon against South, it is.
Who'll join? who'll join? It is but a step of a way, after all, and sailing
as smooth as a duck-pond as soon as you're past Cape Finisterre. I'll run
a Clovelly herring-boat there and back for a wager of twenty pound,
and never ship a bucketful all the way. Who'll join? Don't think you're
buying a pig in a poke. I know the road, and Salvation Yeo, here, too,
who was the gunner's mate, as well as I do the narrow seas, and better.
You ask him to show you the