"Stand, for your lives!" shouted Amyas: and only just in time; for there was ten good minutes lost in running up and down before he could get his men into some order of battle.But when Jack beheld the Spaniards, as if he had expected their coming, he plucked a leaf and put it into the page of his book for a mark, laid the book down soberly, caught up his arquebuse, ran like a mad dog right at the Spanish captain, shot him through the body stark dead, and then, flinging the arquebuse at the head of him who stood next, fell on with his sword like a very Colbrand, breaking in among the arquebuses, and striking right and left such ugly strokes, that the Spaniards (who thought him a very fiend, or Luther's self come to life to plague them) gave back pell-mell, and shot at him five or six at once with their arquebuses: but whether from fear of him, or of wounding each other, made so bad play with their pieces, that he only got one shrewd gall in his thigh, which made him limp for many a day.But as fast as they gave back he came on; and the rest by this time ran up in good order, and altogether nearly forty men well armed.On which the Spaniards turned, and went as fast as they had come, while Cary hinted that, "The dogs had had such a taste of the parson, that they had no mind to wait for the clerk and people.""Come back, Jack! are you mad?" shouted Amyas.
But Jack (who had not all this time spoken one word) followed them as fiercely as ever, till, reaching a great blow at one of the arquebusiers, he caught his foot in a root; on which down he went, and striking his head against the ground, knocked out of himself all the breath he had left (which between fatness and fighting was not much), and so lay.Amyas, seeing the Spaniards gone, did not care to pursue them: but picked up Jack, who, staring about, cried, "Glory be! glory be!--How many have I killed? How many have Ikilled?"
"Nineteen, at the least," quoth Cary, "and seven with one back stroke;" and then showed Brimblecombe the captain lying dead, and two arquebusiers, one of which was the fugitive by whom he came to his fall, beside three or four more who were limping away wounded, some of them by their fellows' shot.
"There!" said Jack, pausing and blowing, "will you laugh at me any more, Mr.Cary; or say that I cannot fight, because I am a poor parson's son?"Cary took him by the hand, and asked pardon of him for his scoffing, saying that he had that day played the best man of all of them; and Jack, who never bore malice, began laughing in his turn, and--"Oh, Mr.Cary, we have all known your pleasant ways, ever since you used to put drumble-drones into my desk to Bideford school." And so they went to the boats, and pulled off, thanking God (as they had need to do) for their great deliverance: while all the boats'
crew rejoiced over Jack, who after a while grew very faint (having bled a good deal without knowing it), and made as little of his real wound as he made much the day before of his imaginary one.
Frank asked him that evening how he came to show so cool and approved a valor in so sudden a mishap.
"Well, my masters," said Jack, "I don't deny that I was very downcast on account of what you said, and the scandal which I had given to the crew; but as it happened, I was reading there under the tree, to fortify my spirits, the history of the ancient worthies, in St.Paul his eleventh chapter to the Hebrews; and just as I came to that, 'out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens,' arose the cry of the Spaniards.At which, gentlemen, thinking in myself that Ifought in just so good a cause as they, and, as I hoped, with like faith, there came upon me so strange an assurance of victory, that I verily believed in myself that if there had been a ten thousand of them, I should have taken no hurt.Wherefore," said Jack, modestly, "there is no credit due to me, for there was no valor in me whatsoever, but only a certainty of safety; and any coward would fight if he knew that he were to have all the killing and none of the scratches."Which words he next day, being Sunday, repeated in his sermon which he made on that chapter, with which all, even Salvation Yeo himself, were well content and edified, and allowed him to be as godly a preacher as he was (in spite of his simple ways) a valiant and true-hearted comrade.
They brought away the Spanish officer's sword (a very good blade), and also a great chain of gold which he wore about his neck; both of which were allotted to Brimblecombe as his fair prize; but he, accepting the sword, steadfastly refused the chain, entreating Amyas to put it into the common stock; and when Amyas refused, he cut it into links and distributed it among those of the boat's crew who had succored him, winning thereby much good-will."And indeed"(says the chronicler), "I never saw in that worthy man, from the first day of our school-fellowship till he was laid in his parish church of Hartland (where he now sleeps in peace), any touch of that sin of covetousness which has in all ages, and in ours no less than others, beset especially (I know not why) them who minister about the sanctuary.But this man, though he was ugly and lowly in person, and in understanding simple, and of breeding but a poor parson's son, had yet in him a spirit so loving and cheerful, so lifted from base and selfish purposes to the worship of duty, and to a generosity rather knightly than sacerdotal, that all through his life he seemed to think only that it was more blessed to give than to receive.And all that wealth which he gained in the wars he dispersed among his sisters and the poor of his parish, living unmarried till his death like a true lover and constant mourner (as shall be said in place), and leaving hardly wherewith to bring his body to the grave.At whom if we often laughed once, we should now rather envy him, desiring to be here what he was, that we may be hereafter where he is.Amen."
