ys Stukely: to which her clemency had nothing to
reply, but turned away, as Mr. Burleigh told me, laughing."

"Alas for him!" said gentle Mrs. Leigh. "Such self-conceit--and Heaven
knows we have the root of it in ourselves also--is the very daughter of
self-will, and of that loud crying out about I, and me, and mine, which
is the very bird-call for all devils, and the broad road which leads to
death."

"It will lead him to his," said Sir Richard; "God grant it be not upon
Tower-hill! for since that Florida plot, and after that his hopes of
Irish preferment came to naught, he who could not help himself by fair
means has taken to foul ones, and gone over to Italy to the Pope, whose
infallibility has not been proof against Stukely's wit; for he was soon
his Holiness's closet counsellor, and, they say, his bosom friend; and
made him give credit to his boasts that, with three thousand soldiers he
would beat the English out of Ireland, and make the Pope's son king of
it."

"Ay, but," said Mr. Leigh, "I suppose the Italians have the same fetch
now as they had when I was there, to explain such ugly cases; namely,
that the Pope is infallible only in doctrine, and quoad Pope; while
quoad hominem, he is even as others, or indeed, in general, a deal
worse, so that the office, and not the man, may be glorified thereby.
But where is Stukely now?"

"At Rome when last I heard of him, ruffling it up and down the Vatican
as Baron Ross, Viscount Murrough, Earl Wexford, Marquis Leinster, and
a title or two more, which have cost the Pope little, seeing that
they never were his to give; and plotting, they say, some hare-brained
expedition against Ireland by the help of the Spanish king, which must
end in nothing but his shame and ruin. And now, my sweet hosts, I must
call for serving-boy and lantern, and home to my bed in Bideford."

And so Amyas Leigh went back to school, and Mr. Oxenham went his way to
Plymouth again, and sailed for the Spanish Main.

CHAPTER II

HOW AMYAS CAME HOME THE FIRST TIME

"Si taceant homines, facient te sidera notum,
Sol nescit comitis immemor esse sui."

Old Epigram on Drake.

Five years are past and gone. It is nine of the clock on a still, bright
November morning; but the bells of Bideford church are still ringing for
the daily service two hours after the usual time; and instead of going
soberly according to wont, cannot help breaking forth every five