garded (and in those days rightly enough) as the enemies of God and man. Of this last fact Oxenham was well aware, and therefore felt somewhat puzzled and nettled, when, after having asked Mr. Leigh's leave to take young Amyas with him, and set forth in glowing colors the purpose of his voyage, he found Sir Richard utterly unwilling to help him with his suit.
"Heyday, Sir Richard! You are not surely gone over to the side of those canting fellows (Spanish Jesuits in disguise, every one of them, they are), who pretend to turn up their noses at Franky Drake as a pirate, and be hanged to them?"
"My friend Oxenham," answered he, in the sententious and measured style of the day, "I have always held, as you should know by this, that Mr. Drake's booty, as well as my good friend Captain Hawkins', is lawful prize, as being taken from the Spaniard, who is not only 'hostis humani generis,' but has no right to the same, having robbed it violently, by torture and extreme iniquity from the poor Indian, whom God avenge, as He surely will."
"Amen," said Mrs. Leigh.
"I say Amen too," quoth Oxenham, "especially if it please Him to avenge them by English hands."
"And I also," went on Sir Richard; "for the rightful owners of the said goods being either miserably dead, or incapable by reason of their servitude, of ever recovering any share thereof, the treasure, falsely called Spanish, cannot be better bestowed than in building up the state of England against them, our natural enemies; and thereby, in building up the weal of the Reformed Churches throughout the world, and the liberties of all nations, against a tyranny more foul and rapacious than that of Nero or Caligula; which, if it be not the cause of God, I, for one, know not what God's cause is!" And, as he warmed in his speech, his eyes flashed very fire.
"Hark now!" said Oxenham, "who can speak more boldly than he? and yet he will not help this lad to so noble an adventure."
"You have asked his father and mother; what is their answer?"
"Mine is this," said Mr. Leigh; "if it be God's will that my boy should become, hereafter, such a mariner as Sir Richard Grenvil, let him go, and God be with him; but let him first bide here at home and be trained, if God give me grace, to become such a gentleman as Sir Richard Grenvil."
Sir Richard bowed low, and Mrs. Leigh catching up the last word—
"There, Mr. Oxenham, you cannot gainsay that, unless you will be discourteous to his worship. And for me—though it be a weak woman's reason, yet it is a mother's: he is my only child. His elder brother is far away. God only knows whether I shall see him again; and what are all reports of his virtues and his learning to me, compared to that sweet presence which I daily
