Beauvallet quotes

Don Juan peered to see more closely into the upturned face. “Come up and die, dog,” he said softly, “for I think you are he whom I seek.”

“All Spain seems to seek me, señor,” answered the stranger merrily. “But who shall slay Nick Beauvallet? Will you try?”

He came up the first steps in a bound, and his sword took Don Juan’s in a strong parry that beat it aside for a moment. He brought his cloak swirling into swift play, and entangled Don Juan’s sword in it.

“But yet I may slay you, pirate!” gasped Cruzada.

“Curb ambition, child,” Beauvallet said. “Here Daw, Russet, Curlew! Overpower me this springald. Softly, lads, softly!”

Cruzada found himself surrounded, and cried out in fury. Rough hands seized him from behind, and dragged him back; he saw Beauvallet leaning on his sword, and cursed him wildly for a coward and a poltroon.

“Don Juan did his duty, señor,” said Don Manuel haughtily.

“Alack then, that virtue has not been better rewarded,” said Sir Nicholas lightly.

“And what am I to do with you?” He bit his finger, pondering the question. “There is of course the long boat. She puts off as soon as may be for the island of Dominica. It lies some three miles to the north of us.

“You cannot!” cried Dominica, incredulous. “You dare not!”

“Dare not? God’s Son, I am Nick Beauvallet!” said Sir Nicholas, amazed. “Dared I sail into Vigo a year back, and lay all waste? What should stop me?”

She flung up her hands, and the dagger flashed in the sunlight. “Oh, now I know that they named you well who named you Mad Beauvallet!”

She flung up her hands, and the dagger flashed in the sunlight. “Oh, now I know that they named you well who named you Mad Beauvallet!”

“You have it wrong,” Beauvallet said, jesting. “Mad Nicholas is the name they call me. I make you free of it, señora.”

Don Manuel interposed. “Señor, I do not understand you. I cannot believe you speak in good faith.”

He flung back his head and laughed out at that. Don Manuel was startled, and broke off in the middle of a line, to the relief of Master Dangerfield, a-nod over his wine.

“The only craft I use is seacraft, señora,”

Beauvallet said. “I wear no charms, but I was born, so they tell me, when Venus and Jupiter were in conjunction. A happy omen! All honour to them!” He raised his cup to these planets, and drank to them.

This he did with complete success. There was only one Drake, but also there was only one Beauvallet. The Spaniards coupled the two names together, but made of Beauvallet a kind of devil.

Drake performed the impossible in the only possible way; the Spaniards said that El Beauvallet performed it in an impossible way, and feared him accordingly.

As for his own men, they held him in some affection, and believed firmly in his luck and in his genius.

“I suppose it is no affair of yours, señor,” she said, recovering her dignity. “I thank you for my book. Now let me pass.”

“I have a name, child. I believe I made you free of it.”

She swept a curtsey. “Oh, I thank you—Sir Nicholas Beauvallet!” she mocked, and fled past him down the companion.

Dominica stamped her foot.

“Oh, blind! I wanted him to kiss me!”

Dominica gave a tiny laugh. “He swears he will come into Spain to seek me. If he but dared!”

“There is an old chronicle writ by one Alan, afterwards Earl of Montlice, wherein we learn that Simon, the first Baron of Beauvallet, took as his motto these words: ‘I have not, but still I hold.’ ” His voice rang out, and died again.

“I have you not yet, but be sure I hold you,” said Beauvallet.

She rallied. “This is folly.”

“My pledge,” Beauvallet said, and slipped a ring from his finger.

“Keep Beauvallet’s ring until Beauvallet comes to claim it.”

She took it, half unwilling. “What need of this?”

She came back to earth; she was blushing and shaken. “Oh, loose me!” she begged, and seemed to flutter in his arms. “How may I believe that you could do the impossible?”

“There is naught impossible that I have found,” he said.

“You shall leave me for a space, since to that I pledged my word, but not for long, my little love, not for long! Look for me before the year is out; I shall surely come.”

My lord and his lady were found in the winter-parlour, where supper was spread upon a draw-table. Sir Nicholas came in upon them, splendid in his rich trappings, and set a small casket before my lady.

“Spain pays toll to beauty, Kate,”

he said, and looked wickedly under his lashes at Gerard’s disapproving countenance.

Sir Nicholas snapped finger and thumb in the air.

“A fig for the Inquisition! Gerard, my careful Gerard, I give you Reck Not!”

Nicholas laughed out.

“Marry, only one thing is certain, Gerard, and that is that ye will never be rid of me. I always come back to be your bane.”

“Lad, you know well I’ve no wish to be rid of you. Can I not prevail with you? For the sake of the house?”

So he had it then, in a few graphic words. It made his jaw drop a little, but it made him twinkle too. “Pretty, very pretty!” he said. “But what now?”

“I shall go to Spain to fetch her,” answered Sir Nicholas, in much the same tone as he would have said he would go to Westminster.

At that Drake let out a mighty echoing laugh. “God amend all!” He sobered suddenly, and leaning forward took Beauvallet’s arm in a strong hold. “Look you. Nick, ha’ done. Art too good a man to be lost.”

“Ha, rogue!” said her Grace, showing teeth a little discoloured in a smile of great good-humour. “So you return again!”

“As a needle to the magnet, madam,” Sir Nicholas said promptly.

She leaned on his arm, and took a few steps with him down the gallery. “What news do ye bring me of my good cousin of Spain?”

Joshua threw out his chest. “Ho, pretty speaking! I follow to the end. Moreover, it has been foretold that I shall die in my bed. What have I to fear?”

“On then,” said Sir Nicholas, and laughed. “On, and reck not!”

He tossed his sword up in the air, and caught it deftly as it fell. The sunlight glinted all along the shimmering blade. Between eight crowns the name Andrea Ferrara was inscribed, and beneath it a pungent motto:—My bite is sure.

“A sword and my wits against all Spain!”

sang out Beauvallet, and whistled a catch between his teeth. Then he fell to thinking of her whom he went to seek, and the leagues passed uncounted.

“ ’S death, sir, will you go into the lion’s den?” quaked Joshua.

“I know of only one lion, sirrah, and that one is not to be found in Spain!”

Beauvallet said. “I am bound on the morrow for the Alcazar. Lay me out a rich suit of the French cut.” He brought out the stolen papers from his bosom, and laid them on the table.

Not by the flicker of an eyelash did Beauvallet betray how unwelcome this courtesy was to him.

Danger crouched before him; he went smiling towards it: Beauvallet’s way!

Don Diaz led him across the room, and spoke in a soft undertone. “It is judged best, señor, that no secret should be made of your visit to Madrid. M. de Lauvinière might then suspect.

“Plenty of food for enthusiasm in Madrid, madam,” said Sir Nicholas politely.

“Ah! But when you attain to my years, señor, you will realize that there is nothing in the world to feed enthusiasm.”

“I shall hope to preserve my illusions, madame.”

“I shall hope to preserve my illusions, madame.”

“It is far better to have none,” drawled the lady.

Don Rodriguez, hovering solicitously about his spouse, smiled deprecatingly. He found himself in constant need to temper her oddities by this fidgetty, excusing smile.

“What is it now?” inquired Doña Beatrice, lifting her eyes for a moment.

“You did not suppose that I married your uncle for love, did you?”

Dominica felt herself to be young and foolish, at a disadvantage. “I did not know, señora, but for myself I do not mean to wed my cousin. He is—he is—in short, señora, I do not care for him.”

he was nothing beyond the ordinary, to be sure. It was not caution made her so reticent, for she could not think that she would ever see Sir Nicholas again, but she had a dread of letting her aunt into her confidence.

Doña Beatrice was like a snail, she thought, trailing a sticky poison in her wake.

What she touched she soiled; all virtue was made to seem a little foolish; all vice was merely smiled upon.

Doña Beatrice was like a snail, she thought, trailing a sticky poison in her wake.

What she touched she soiled; all virtue was made to seem a little foolish; all vice was merely smiled upon.

She shocked her niece from the first, most of all upon the question of religion. When it appeared that Dominica went too seldom to Mass Doña Beatrice spoke of the omission, and told the girl that it would be wise to attend regularly.

He lowered his voice. “Still so cruel? Still so cold? You who set hearts flaming!”

“God send a shower to quench them,” she said, and moved away to her aunt’s side.

She stayed there for a long hour while guests arrived and were announced. All were strangers to her; she had to be presented again and again. To her annoyance Don Diego stood upon her other side.

“Only for you,” she said.

“Fear for me when you hear of my death,” he smiled. “Not till then.”

He held her close a moment. “Keep Diego at arm’s length, my lass,” he said, twinkling, “or I might be tempted to out sword and thrust him there.”

He laughed impenitently.

“I had liefer do that than run from it, sweetheart,” he said.

“What news for me?”

He bent his head, and kissed her fingers.

“Señorita, my heart is under your feet.”

“Chevalier, Chevalier, you are a trifler!” said Doña Beatrice. “A moment since I had thought it was under mine.”

“Enough of that!” Again Noveli intervened. “This is for other interrogation than yours, Don Diego. Hold your peace, I command you! If we do you an injustice, Chevalier, I hope you will be kind enough only to laugh at us.”

“You may be sure of it, señor,” said Sir Nicholas. “We shall all laugh.”

Again his glance flitted to Dominica’s face. “Let no one be ill at ease. This affair will have a happy ending, don’t doubt it.” There came a stir by the door, and the clank of spurred heels. “Aha, the guard!

He takes a galleon: witchcraft! you cry. He sacks a town: more witchcraft! He comes into Spain on an errand of romance: foulest witchcraft of all! swear you. Well, I will tell you what I think, and I believe I am not a fool.

He is English, therefore a little mad; he is a lover, therefore reckless.

If he laughs it is because he is of those sort of men who will laugh though they die for it. There is all his magic.” She yawned.

He comes into Spain on an errand of romance: foulest witchcraft of all! swear you. Well, I will tell you what I think, and I believe I am not a fool. He is English, therefore a little mad; he is a lover, therefore reckless.

If he laughs it is because he is of those sort of men who will laugh though they die for it. There is all his magic.

” She yawned. “I dare say he will laugh as he goes to the stake, as I fear he will go. You fatigue me, Don Diego, and put me out of all patience with myself that I bore a fool.”

The lackey at the door ran after. “Señor, the lieutenant—”

“To hell with the lieutenant!” said Sir Nicholas. “Drive on!”

The coach rumbled out of the gate and turned at right angles into the street.

Sir Nicholas rose up from his chair. His eyes twinkled.

“Marry, so would I know, Joshua,” he said frankly.

Joshua shook his head severely. “This is no way to go to work, master. What, do you think to have the noble lady away this night with never a plan in your head?”

She was carried to the thicket where the horses stood, and set down in the middle of it. Sir Nicholas untied his horse and gathered the bridle in his hand. A moment he looked down at Doña Beatrice, glaring up at him.

“Señora,” he said, “do not repine at the discomfort of your situation. Had you been a man I should have killed you.”

“Well, master, well. And if you come not?”

“By this hand I shall come!” said Beauvallet. “What, do you fear for me? Know then that I was never more in the mood to try a throw with death.”

“That I may very easily believe, sir, and I may add that it does not set me the more at ease,” said Joshua. He peered ahead and reined in to a walk. “Softly now! What’s here?”

“One has entered,” said Sir Nicholas. He came into the hall, purposeful, a stalking terror. “I have the honour of presenting myself to you, señor, in my true guise.” He stood in the middle of the hall now, feet wide planted.

“I am El Beauvallet, Don Diego, and I come to seek a reckoning with you!”

His voice rang out; his beard jutted dangerously.

“And well he might be!” said Joshua Dimmock.

“An unlikely tale, I grant you, but by this time I was grown barren of lies, a very uncommon thing in me.”

Doña Dominica was shown upstairs to a chamber of fair size and appointments. She sank into a chair, and said pettishly for the benefit of the landlord: “It was you who should have chased those knaves, Pedro.” She hunched a shoulder.

Joshua was moved to admiration.

“With good leave,” he said, “I may remark that the señorita bears herself like an Englishwoman.”

“This is to praise you, child,” said Sir Nicholas, amused.