Captain Kyd Volume I Part 1

Captain Kyd.

Vol 1.

by Jonathon Holt Ingraham.

PREFACE.

The following dramatic romance consists of two acts, with an interval of five years between them. The time and action of the first part, the scene of which is placed in the south of Ireland, are comprised in something less than three days; that of the second, the scenes of which are laid in New-York Bay and on its adjacent sh.o.r.es, embraces a somewhat longer s.p.a.ce of time, the two comprising the most prominent crises of the hero's life--one giving the colouring to the whole of his subsequent career, which in the other is brought to its close.

Natchez, Miss., Jan., 1839.

BOOK I.

THE CAUSE.

"A lady should not scorn One soul that loves her, howe'er lowly it be."

BARRY CORNWALL.

"'Twere idle to remember now, Had I the heart, my thwarted schemes.

I bear beneath this alter'd brow The ashes of a thousand dreams-- Some wrought of wild Ambition's fingers, Some colour'd of Love's pencil well--

Ambition has but foil'd my grasp, And Love has perish'd in my clasp."

_Melanie._

CHAPTER I.

"Oh, bold Robin Hood Was a forester good As ever drew bow in the merry green wood, And what eye hath e'er seen Such a sweet maiden queen As Marian the pride of the forester's green."

On a rocky headland that stretches boldly out into the bosom of one of the lakelike bays that indent the southern sh.o.r.e of Ireland, stands a picturesque ruin, half hidden to the eye of the voyager amid a group of old trees. With its solitary square tower, and warlike battlements jagged and stern in their desolation, it still wears an air of imposing grandeur, that conveys some idea of its ancient baronial state. It is known by the name of "old Castle Cor;" and in its palmy days was the summer abode of the last Earl of Bellamont.

On a bright morning in the merry month of May, in the year sixteen hundred and ninety-four, its now silent halls rung with the joyous voices and noisy sports of a score of gallant youths and n.o.ble maidens, gathered there, from many a lordly roof both far and near, to celebrate a rural fete in honour of the sixteenth birthday of the only child of this ancient house, the beautiful Kate Bellamont, better known throughout the barony as "wild Kate of Castle Cor." In the pastimes of the day, archery, then much practised by ladies of gentle blood, was to hold a conspicuous place, and a silver arrow was to be awarded to the victor by the hands of Lady Bellamont herself. As the hour of noon approached, the earl's chief forester, Cormac Dermot, his gray locks covered with a red cloth bonnet, in which was fastened an eagle's plume, and his goodly person arrayed in a holyday suit of green and gold, made his appearance on the lawn by the west side of the castle, and wound his horn, loud and long, as the signal that the "gentle sporte of archerie"

was now about to begin.

The place chosen for the trial of skill was an ample lawn of the softest and greenest verdure, lying between the wall of the castle and the verge of the cliff. A few ancient oaks grew here and there upon it; and towards the south it was open to the land-locked bay and far-distant sea, which, wide as the vision extended, seemed to belt the horizon like a s.h.i.+ning band of silver. At each extremity of the field, one hundred yards apart, was pitched upon the sward a gorgeous pavilion, one of blue, the other of orange-coloured silk: the hangings of the former were fringed with silver; and from the festooned curtains of the latter pended ta.s.sels of silk and gold. In these were laid tables spread with cloths of crimson damask, and covered with every luxury that could tempt the palate or gratify the eye. From the summit of one of the pavilions fluttered a crimson banneret, displaying the arms of Bellamont, its boar's-head crest pierced through with an arrow, emblematical of the occasion; and from the top of the other waved a white banner, in the centre of which, according to the rules of heraldry, a bow, quiver, target and other signs of archery were tastefully emblazoned.

Twenty-five yards in front of each pavilion, two targets were placed, fifty yards apart, so that, after sending all their arrows at one, the archers might walk up to it and gather them, and, taking their stand by it, shoot back to the other; thus alternately reversing the direction of their shots, and adding healthful exercise to their graceful pastime.

The targets were both very beautiful, and gay with colours; being round wooden s.h.i.+elds half an inch in thickness and three feet in diameter, with four circles painted on the faces: the outer white, with a green border; the next black; the next within it orange; and the inner circle red, encompa.s.sing a gold centre. They were elevated, at a slight angle, twenty inches from the ground, on a light frame resembling a painter's easel.

Midway between the targets, but safely placed several paces back from the erratic path of the arrows, was erected beneath an ancient linden-tree a sylvan throne, surmounted by a canopy of silk, elaborately worked with the needle to represent Diana, with her nymphs and hounds, pursuing a herd of deer with flights of arrows. This was the seat of the umpire of the sports--Katrine, the lovely Countess of Bellamont.

Altogether, it was an imposing and gorgeous scene; and, with its stern castle rising boldly from the verdant lawn topped with battlements and towers; with its boundary on the north side, of green, dark old woods, and the calm, deep bay beneath, with a yacht sleeping on its bosom; with its extended prospect of the illimitable sea forever breathing with a mysterious life, the field of archery at Castle Cor, for the natural beauty of the spot and the taste displayed in its adornment, has doubtless had no parallel in the annals of archery.

Scarcely had the echoes of old Cormac's horn died away in the forest, startling many a stately stag to flight, when the castle poured forth its gay throng of archers towards the lists. In their midst was the Countess of Bellamont, escorted by a bodyguard of young archeresses. She was then in the prime and beauty of ripe womanhood: at that delightful age when the wife and mother, all the charms of mind and person fully developed and refined by taste and elegant culture, fascinates by a thousand nameless graces, and captivates and enslaves even the youthful crowd that sigh at the feet of her lovely daughter of seventeen--the age that leaves one in doubt whether beautiful women arrive at the zenith of their beauty and power under five-and-thirty.

This was the age of Katrine of Bellamont; and though at eighteen (when she became a bride) the loveliest of all Irish maidens either of gentle or lowly birth, yet now, as the Countess of Bellamont, far-famed for her rare and stately beauty. She was arrayed in a simple white robe; and a laced jacket of royal-purple velvet closely fitted her magnificent bust.

When she entered the field she was conducted by her juvenile escort to the throne, on which she seated herself, and with a playfully a.s.sumed queenly dignity that became her highborn air. A coronet of pearls graced her brow; and her symmetrical hand, that rivalled pearls in its soft transparency, gracefully held, like a sceptre, the miniature arrow which was to be the prize for excelling in archery. Her deep blue eyes, as she looked around, reflected, in a thousand smiling beams, the joy that danced on each youthful face, and the sunny light of her own countenance communicated suns.h.i.+ne of the heart wherever it fell.

On each side of the throne stood a well-born youth habited as a page, and behind her were stationed two beautiful young girls attired as sylphides. On her right hand, a few feet in the rear, leaning on a yew bow six feet in length, stood Cormac Dermot, his stag's horn, richly inlaid and curiously carved with woodland devices, slung beneath his left shoulder, with the mouthpiece brought round in front ready for use.

A little farther beyond, and nearer the castle-wall, was a.s.sembled a group of lower degree, consisting of under-foresters, retainers of the household, and neighbouring peasants; while on the opposite side of the lawn might be seen, relieved against the sky, the forms of two or three fishermen, whom curiosity had led to climb the dizzy precipice from the beach--far along the white line of which were visible their scattered huts, looking like black specks upon the sand.

All was now animation with the preparations for the lists. From bundles of bows thrown by Dermot on the ground before each pavilion, the youths began busily to select weapons for the fair archers, who were themselves earnestly engaged in choosing arrows from quivers that were hung on the front of the tent; fastening braces of thick fawn's leather on their left or bow arm just above the wrist to preserve it from injury by the rebound of the bow-string; and drawing on the right hand, from parcels handed them by pages, shooting-gloves, with three finger-stalls, fitted with a strap and b.u.t.ton to fasten at the wrist, to protect their fingers in drawing the arrow. Besides these appendages of archery, each archeress wore a belt buckled about the waist, to which pended a ta.s.sel of the softest floss of Brussels, to wipe away the soil that adhered to the arrows when drawn from the ground; and also an ivory box with a metal lid, containing a perfumed paste for anointing the finger-stalls of the shooting-gloves and the brace on the arm, that the bow-string might the more easily quit the fingers and pa.s.s over the guarded wrist.

A small pouch, either of tortoise-sh.e.l.l or of silver, in shape and dimensions like a sportsman's cup or a dicebox, was suspended on the right side to receive two or three arrows; the more c.u.mbersome quiver, while in target-shooting, being left on the ground near at hand, filled with shafts to replace those broken or lost.

The party of archeresses consisted of seven fair girls, the eldest scarce seventeen. They were fancifully attired, some in green, and others in orange or blue hunting-jackets, after the tasteful fas.h.i.+on of the period; a costume admirably calculated to display their sylphan shapes. They all wore hats of the colour of their spencers, looped up in front, and ornamented with waves of snowy plumes. Long white trains descended from their waists to the ground, but, in shooting, were gathered beneath the belt on the left side, and, thence falling down again to the feet in numerous folds, added to the grace and picturesqueness of their appearance. Each archeress was attended by a favoured youth as an esquire, habited in a green or gray hunting-frock, bordered with a wreath of embroidered oak-leaves, with an arrow worked in silver thread on each lappel. They wore broad flapping hats, turned boldly back from the forehead, and shaded in front with a drooping black plume. Each carried a short hunting-spear, decked with ribands of the colour of his mistress' jacket, gifts from her own hand and tied thereon with her own fingers, in token that she acknowledged him as her "Esquire of the Bow." The duty of these youthful cavaliers was to select a bow suited to the strength of the archeress whose colours they wore; to fit it with an arrow of a weight proportioned to its power, having a nock exactly receiving the string; to a.s.sist, if the lady is unskilled, in stringing the bow; to draw the arrows from the b.u.t.t, or collect the far-shot shafts and return them to the owner; and otherwise, as courtesy and gallantry prompted, to do their duty as "esquires of archerie."

Once more the sonorous horn of old Cormac was heard winding, now high, now low, in a long, wild strain, and then ending in three sharp blasts, like the stirring notes of a bugle sounding to the charge. Every archeress now had her brace buckled on her arm, and her shooting-glove b.u.t.toned about her wrist; every one had two good arrows in the pouch at her belt, and a third on the string; and each fair girl, attended by her esquire, hastened to the stand by the southernmost target at the sound of the forester's horn--save, in each instance, Kate Bellamont! Her brace would not buckle all she could do; her shooting-glove would not go on, and three, that she had pulled off, were lying rent at her feet; and not an arrow was to be seen in her tortoise-sh.e.l.l pouch, though half a dozen fair ones lay about her on the ground! It was very plain that something was going wrong with the maiden. Such a dilemma could not have happened without a cause. The braces of the rest buckled with ease; their shooting-gloves fitted beautifully; and there had been time enough to fill twenty pouches. Why, then, was Kate Bellamont not ready? Her brace, both strap and buckle, was perfect; and the wrist it was destined to compa.s.s was not to be matched for its smallness of size! The gloves, plainly were just what they should be! Her companions had been fitted, and her hand was the smallest as well as the fairest of the party; besides, there were a dozen pairs on the ground that evidently were made for no other hand. The cause could not lie in the arrows, for they were, to the eye, without fault, and of every variety of shape and fas.h.i.+on known to archery; nor in her handsome esquire, who, save when requested by some eager girl to a.s.sist her, had been diligently serving her with arrow after arrow, until he had emptied two quivers, the contents of which now lay strewn around. The cause is not to be found in either of these. The truth is, Kate Bellamont was playing with her little foot against the ground when she should have been trying on her glove. No sooner was one pulled half way on than she suffered it to remain so, drumming the while in a fit of absence on the sward, while her eyes followed the motions of her handsome esquire. The next moment, recovering herself, she would tear it off impatiently, and, with a laugh, fling it to the ground. She would then take up another, and go through the same process, or play with her brace instead of buckling it; and when the young gentleman gave her an arrow, without scarcely touching it to the bow-string she threw it down, saying it was too heavy or too light, too long or too short, had too much feather or had not feather enough; so that, when the rest of the party were ready, Kate Bellamont was just where she was at the outset. The result of all this, whether brought about designedly or not by a little female manoeuvring, being a question to be solved by such as are skilled in the ways and means by which women work out their ends, was, that when the last notes of Cormac's horn died away in the forest, Kate Bellamont found herself and her esquire, the n.o.ble and youthful heir of the broad lands of the earldom of Lester, left quite alone. The brace was on her arm unbuckled, and she held a glove in her hand.

"Lord Robert, do clasp this troublesome brace for me. Strange you could not see what difficulty I have had to get ready! But I suppose you were so engaged fitting an arrow to pretty Gracy Fitzgerald's bow, that you had no eyes for any one else!"

This was said half in pique, half laughingly; and holding, with a pouting lip, her snowy arm towards her esquire as she spoke, he gallantly received it, and with the merest effort in the world clasped the rebellious brace. But he did not release her soft hand without giving it a slight pressure, and looking into her face with an eloquent gaze, which she consciously met with eyes half downcast, yet beaming through their long dark lashes with a gentle fire that young love only could have kindled.

"Now, Sir Esquire, fasten this glove."

The youth bent till the black plume of his bonnet rested on her arm, and, with some difficulty apparently, for he was a very long time about it, succeeded in b.u.t.toning the silken strap across the blue-veined wrist; nor did he lift his head from the fair hand, which lay nestled like a bird in his beneath the thick covert of his drooping feather, ere he had touched it with his bold lip.

"Ha, Sir Forester, is this a part of your service as squire of archery?"

she demanded, with the blood mounting to her cheek in maidenly surprise; though the pouting smile on her mouth, which she vainly tried to turn into a frown, and the dancing light in her telltale eyes, betokened anything besides resentment at the bold deed; "I see I must resign you to my sly little cousin Gracy, and take her well-behaved esquire; doubtless you better understand her humour than you seem to do mine."

By the time she had ended she had succeeded in calling up a small cloud on her brow, which struggled very hard to cast a shadow over the sunny light that played around her lovely mouth and was reflected back in a thousand rays from the deep wells of her black, Castilian eyes.

"Forgive me, sweet Lady Kate," said the esquire, dropping on one knee--disguising his att.i.tude to the eyes of others by gathering carelessly one or two arrows from the ground--to her eyes alone a suppliant. The expression of his face amusingly wavered between playful mockery and seriousness, as if greatly fearing, yet doubting much, that his daring act had really given offence: a sort of neutral ground between mirth and grief, with the advantage of enabling him to fall readily into the one or the other, as he should find the needle of her humour pointed.

"See, then, you offend not again, sir," she said, laughing at the troubled expression of his serio-comic countenance. "Haste! choose me an arrow that tapers from the pile to the feather."

"One that tapers each way from the middle will suit you better for shooting in this light wind," said the young esquire, the puzzled play of his handsome features changed to suns.h.i.+ne by her voice. As he spoke he brought a quiver full of arrows and poured them out at her feet, and, kneeling on the thick verdure, selected an arrow of the kind he had named.

"No, no," she said, putting it aside; "they always curve from the line of sight; and, besides, fly unsteady."

"Not in a wind, Kate. The fulness in the middle counteracts the weight of the ends, and drives it more evenly."

"Do as you are bidden, Sir Esquire," she said. "Don't think now you are going to have your own way." A second arrow was placed in her hand by the youth.

"Why, Lord Robert, what _is_ the matter with your wits! This is an arrow of the same kind; and, besides, it is without a c.o.c.k-feather. I shall have to call yonder handsome fisher's lad, who is watching me so admiringly, to my a.s.sistance."

The esquire, without looking up, mechanically handed to her a third arrow, with the head broken and the feathers ruffled. Without being able to speak in her surprise, she looked quietly down and beheld the young man so intently contemplating one of her exquisite little feet, that twice she spoke to him ere he looked up to encounter her gaze of arch astonishment. It was very plain what had become of her esquire's wits.

The youth blushed, and hastily rose to his feet; but the maiden could not disguise a little female vanity, though she shook her finger at him, and said mischievously,