Collected Poems Volume II Part 98

Once, as the pace flagged, Over his shoulder he turned his great scarred face And snarled, with a trickle of blood on his coa.r.s.e lips, "Hard!"-- And blood and fire ran through my veins again, For half a minute more.

Yet we fell back.

Our course was crooked now. And suddenly A grim black speck began to grow behind us, Grow like the threat of death upon old age.

Then, thickening, blackening, sharpening, foaming, swept Up the bright line of bubbles in our wake, That armoured wherry, with its long twelve oars All well together now.

"Too late," gasped Ben, His ash-grey face uplifted to the moon, One quivering hand upon the thwart behind him, A moment. Then he bowed over his knees Coughing. "But we'll delay them. We'll be drunk, And hold the catch-polls up!"

We drifted down Before them, broadside on. They sheered aside.

Then, feigning a clumsy stroke, Ben drove our craft As they drew level, right in among their blades.

There was a shout, an oath. They thrust us off; And then we swung our nose against their bows And pulled them round with every well-meant stroke.

A full half minute, ere they won quite free, Cursing us for a pair of drunken fools.

We drifted down behind them.

"There's no doubt,"

Said Ben, "the headsman waits behind all this For Raleigh. This is a play to cheat the soul Of England, teach the people to applaud The red fifth act."

Without another word we drifted down For centuries it seemed, until we came To Greenwich.

Then up the long white burnished reach there crept Like little sooty clouds the two black boats To meet us.

"He is in the trap," said Ben, "And does not know it yet. See, where he sits By Stukeley as by a friend."

Long after this, We heard how Raleigh, simply as a child, Seeing the tide would never serve him now, And they must turn, had taken from his neck Some trinkets that he wore. "Keep them," he said To Stukeley, "in remembrance of this night."

He had no doubts of Stukeley when he saw The wherry close beside them. He but wrapped His cloak a little closer round his face.

Our boat rocked in their wash when Stukeley dropped The mask. We saw him give the sign, and heard His high-pitched quavering voice--"IN THE KING'S NAME!"

Raleigh rose to his feet. "I am under arrest?"

He said, like a dazed man.

And Stukeley laughed.

Then, as he bore himself to the grim end, All doubt being over, the old sea-king stood Among those glittering points, a king indeed.

The black boats rocked. We heard his level voice, "_Sir Lewis, these actions never will turn out To your good credit._" Across the moonlit Thames It rang contemptuously, cold as cold steel, And pa.s.sionless as the judgment that ends all.

Some three months later, Raleigh's widow came To lodge a se'nnight at the Mermaid Inn.

His house in Bread Street was no more her own, But in the hands of Stukeley, who had reaped A pretty harvest ...

She kept close to her room, and that same night, Being ill and with some fever, sent her maid To fetch the apothecary from Friday Street, Old "Galen" as the Mermaid christened him.

At that same moment, as the maid went out, Stukeley came in. He met her at the door; And, chucking her under the chin, gave her a letter.

"Take this up to your mistress. It concerns Her property," he said. "Say that I wait, And would be glad to speak with her."

The wench Looked pertly in his face, and tripped upstairs.

I scarce could trust my hands.

"Sir Lewis," I said, "This is no time to trouble her. She is ill."

"Let her decide," he answered, with a sneer.

Before I found another word to say The maid tripped down again. I scarce believed My senses, when she beckoned him up the stair.

Shaking from head to foot, I blocked the way.

"Property!" Could the crux of mine and thine Bring widow and murderer into one small room?

"Sir Lewis," I said, "she is ill. It is not right!

She never would consent."

He sneered again, "You are her doctor? Out of the way, old fool!

She has decided!"

"Go," I said to the maid, "Fetch the apothecary. Let it rest With him!"

She tossed her head. Her quick eyes glanced, Showing the white, like the eyes of a vicious mare.

She laughed at Stukeley, loitered, then obeyed.

And so we waited, till the wench returned, With Galen at her heels. His wholesome face, Russet and wrinkled like an apple, peered Shrewdly at Stukeley, twinkled once at me, And pa.s.sed in silence, leaving a whiff of herbs Behind him on the stair.

Five minutes later, To my amazement, that same wholesome face Leaned from the lighted door above, and called "Sir Lewis Stukeley!"

Sir Judas hastened up.

The apothecary followed him within.

The door shut. I was left there in the dark Bewildered; for my heart was hot with thoughts Of those last months. Our Summer's Nightingale, Our Ocean-Shepherd from the Main-deep Sea, The Founder of our Mermaid Fellows.h.i.+p, Was this his guerdon--at the Mermaid Inn?

Was this that maid-of-honour whose romance With Raleigh, once, had been a kingdom's talk?

Could Bess Throckmorton slight his memory thus?

"It is not right," I said, "it is not right.

She wrongs him deeply."

I leaned against the porch Staring into the night. A ghostly ray Above me, from her window, bridged the street, And rested on the goldsmith's painted sign Opposite.

I could hear the m.u.f.fled voice Of Stukeley overhead, persuasive, bland; And then, her own, cooing, soft as a dove Calling her mate from Eden cedar-boughs, Flowed on and on; and then--all my flesh crept At something worse than either, a long s.p.a.ce Of silence that stretched threatening and cold, Cold as a dagger-point p.r.i.c.king the skin Over my heart.

Then came a stifled cry, A cras.h.i.+ng door, a footstep on the stair Blundering like a drunkard's, heavily down; And with his gasping face one tragic mask Of horror,--may G.o.d help me to forget Some day the frozen awful eyes of one Who, fearing neither h.e.l.l nor heaven, has met That ultimate weapon of the G.o.ds, the face And serpent-tresses that turn flesh to stone-- Stukeley stumbled, groping his way out, Blindly, past me, into the sheltering night.

It was the last night of another year Before I understood what punishment Had overtaken Stukeley. Ben, and Brome-- Ben's ancient servant, but turned poet now-- Sat by the fire with the old apothecary To see the New Year in.

The starry night Had drawn me to the door. Could it be true That our poor earth no longer was the hub Of those white wheeling orbs? I scarce believed The strange new dreams; but I had seen the veils Rent from vast oceans and huge continents, Till what was once our comfortable fire, Our cosy tavern, and our earthly home With heaven beyond the next turn in the road, All the resplendent fabric of our world Shrank to a glow-worm, lighting up one leaf In one small forest, in one little land, Among those wild infinitudes of G.o.d.

A tattered wastrel wandered down the street, Clad in a seaman's jersey, staring hard At every sign. Beneath our own, the light Fell on his red carbuncled face. I knew him-- The bo'sun, Hart.

He pointed to our sign And leered at me. "That's her," he said, "no doubt, The sea-witch with the s.h.i.+ny mackerel tail Swis.h.i.+ng in wine. That's what Sir Lewis meant.

He called it blood. Blood is his craze, you see.

This is the Mermaid Tavern, sir, no doubt?"

I nodded. "Ah, I thought as much," he said.

"Well--happen this is worth a cup of ale."

He thrust his hand under his jersey and lugged A greasy letter out. It was inscribed THE APOTHECARY AT THE MERMAID TAVERN.

I led him in. "I knew it, sir," he said, While Galen broke the seal. "Soon as I saw That sweet young naked wench curling her tail In those red waves.--The old man called it blood.

Blood is his craze, you see.--But you can tell 'Tis wine, sir, by the foam. Malmsey, no doubt.

And that sweet wench to make you smack your lips Like oysters, with her slippery tail and all!

Why, sir, no doubt, this was the Mermaid Inn."

"But this," said Galen, lifting his grave face To Ben, "this letter is from all that's left Of Stukeley. The good host, there, thinks I wronged Your Ocean-shepherd's memory. From this letter, I think I helped to avenge him. Do not wrong His widow, even in thought. She loved him dearly.

You know she keeps his poor grey severed head Embalmed; and so will keep it till she dies; Weeps over it alone. I have heard such things In wild Italian tales. But _this_ was true.

Had I refused to let her speak with Stukeley I feared she would go mad. This letter proves That I--and she perhaps--were instruments, Of some more terrible chirurgery Than either knew."

"Ah, when I saw your sign,"

The bo'sun interjected, "I'd no doubt That letter was well worth a cup of ale."

"Go--paint your bows with h.e.l.l-fire somewhere else, Not at this inn," said Ben, tossing the rogue A good French crown. "Pickle yourself in h.e.l.l."

And Hart lurched out into the night again, Muttering "Thank you, sirs. 'Twas worth all that.

No doubt at all."

"There are some men," said Galen, Spreading the letter out on his plump knees, "Will heap up wrong on wrong; and, at the last, Wonder because the world will not forget Just when it suits them, cancel all they owe, And, like a mother, hold its arms out wide At their first cry. And, sirs, I do believe That Stukeley, on that night, had some such wish To reconcile himself. What else had pa.s.sed Between the widow and himself I know not; But she had lured him on until he thought That words and smiles, perhaps a tear or two, Might make the widow take the murderer's hand In friends.h.i.+p, since it might advantage both.

Indeed, he came prepared for even more.

Villains are always fools. A wicked act, What is it but a false move in the game, A blind man's blunder, a deaf man's reply, The wrong drug taken in the dead of night?

I always pity villains.