Oxenham, my beautiful Joseph is gone; and though he be lord of Pharaoh's household, yet he is far away in Egypt; and you will take Benjamm also! Ah! Mr.Oxenham, you have no child, or you would not ask for mine!""And how do you know that, my sweet madam!" said the adventurer, turning first deadly pale, and then glowing red.Her last words had touched him to the quick in some unexpected place; and rising, he courteously laid her hand to his lips, and said--"I say no more.
Farewell, sweet madam, and God send all men such wives as you.""And all wives," said she, smiling, "such husbands as mine.""Nay, I will not say that," answered he, with a half sneer--and then, "Farewell, friend Leigh--farewell, gallant Dick Grenville.
God send I see thee Lord High Admiral when I come home.And yet, why should I come home? Will you pray for poor Jack, gentles?""Tut, tut, man! good words," said Leigh; "let us drink to our merry meeting before you go." And rising, and putting the tankard of malmsey to his lips, he passed it to Sir Richard, who rose, and saying, "To the fortune of a bold mariner and a gallant gentleman,"drank, and put the cup into Oxenham's hand.
The adventurer's face was flushed, and his eye wild.Whether from the liquor he had drunk during the day, or whether from Mrs.
Leigh's last speech, he had not been himself for a few minutes.He lifted the cup, and was in act to pledge them, when he suddenly dropped it on the table, and pointed, staring and trembling, up and down, and round the room, as if following some fluttering object.
"There! Do you see it? The bird!--the bird with the white breast!"Each looked at the other; but Leigh, who was a quick-witted man and an old courtier, forced a laugh instantly, and cried--"Nonsense, brave Jack Oxenham! Leave white birds for men who will show the white feather.Mrs.Leigh waits to pledge you."Oxenham recovered himself in a moment, pledged them all round, drinking deep and fiercely; and after hearty farewells, departed, never hinting again at his strange exclamation.
After he was gone, and while Leigh was attending him to the door, Mrs.Leigh and Grenville kept a few minutes' dead silence.At last--"God help him!" said she.
"Amen!" said Grenville, "for he never needed it more.But, indeed, madam, I put no faith in such omens.""But, Sir Richard, that bird has been seen for generations before the death of any of his family.I know those who were at South Tawton when his mother died, and his brother also; and they both saw it.God help him! for, after all, he is a proper man.""So many a lady has thought before now, Mrs.Leigh, and well for him if they had not.But, indeed, I make no account of omens.
When God is ready for each man, then he must go; and when can he go better?""But," said Mr.Leigh, who entered, "I have seen, and especially when I was in Italy, omens and prophecies before now beget their own fulfilment, by driving men into recklessness, and making them run headlong upon that very ruin which, as they fancied, was running upon them.""And which," said Sir Richard, "they might have avoided, if, instead of trusting in I know not what dumb and dark destiny, they had trusted in the living God, by faith in whom men may remove mountains, and quench the fire, and put to flight the armies of the alien.I too know, and know not how I know, that I shall never die in my bed.""God forfend! " cried Mrs.Leigh.
"And why, fair madam, if I die doing my duty to my God and my queen? The thought never moves me: nay, to tell the truth, I pray often enough that I may be spared the miseries of imbecile old age, and that end which the old Northmen rightly called 'a cow's death'
rather than a man's.But enough of this.Mr.Leigh, you have done wisely to-night.Poor Oxenham does not go on his voyage with a single eye.I have talked about him with Drake and Hawkins; and Iguess why Mrs.Leigh touched him so home when she told him that he had no child.""Has he one, then, in the West Indies?" cried the good lady.
