THE YOUNG ADVENTURERS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 17, 20 January 1940, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE YOUNG ADVENTURERS

How little he had changcd in these years, reflected Eleanor, as she watched him at supper. Perhaps a finer polish on his manner, a richer sheen on his velvet. Thero was still the charming gravity with which he attended, the rare smile lie bestowed on the speaker like a gift, the rapier-like thrust into the conversation that brought it all to an instant silence. Beside his their minds were clumsy dwarfs, pottering slowly along while he soared on wings. This is how he talks to the ladies at court, sighed Kleanor, and wished that Ananias would take her to London. "What was the good of all the Latin and Greek she had learnt out of the books Sir Walter used to give her? Alt secrets were to be out with the great man's arrival, and as soon as supper was under way he started. They had had enough of adventurers, lie said; more than enough of pirates who left their lawful business and "turned corsair" the moment a Spanish ship came, over the horizon. Fifteen men had been dropped at Roanoke by Grenville when he had arrived with his relief ship and found no colonists to relieve- They would take a party of householders—"householders," ho repeated—and join them. "We will have a voyage entcrprised for trade, for traffic, for the lawful enlarging of Her Majesty's dominions. The Governor will be Master White here, and he will have twelve Assistants. They will be:"

The first name he uttered was Master Ananias Dare.

Ananias was going. That grey fact slid into Eleanor's mind, blotting out every other fact like a cold fog. Ananias •was to go dipping under the horizon into the new country as she had seen the others go. He was chosen. An Assistant. That was the cause of the new deference she had noticed. And go he would, she knew, though they hadn't been married a year. Sir Walter was still pouring out a stream of words, words, words that were floating Ananias farther and farther away from her with every sentence . . . " —a plantation of householders, my masters " Like a flash a sentence came into her mind, a sentence that, years ago, Sir Walter had thrust at her like a bright sword at this very table. She could remember the goosc-walking-over-her-grave feeling it had given her. But now it was like a rope to a drowning man. Up it came from, the storage of her memory: "Sir " and he stopped, silenced by her astonishing voice. "Sir, when the plantation grows in strength plant with women." The whole company glared at her, waiting for the great man to give her quietus. But instead he turned on her a smile that was more nearly a grin than any expression she had seen on his face. "Eleanor has read my Lord Bacon, has she?" he said. "And aptly too." "Your own words to me, sir, across this very table." "Ay, and I had a mind to use them again as soon as we were ripe to hoar them." 'Tm a woman," persisted Eleanor. "And you would venture?" "Where my husband goes I will go," and for the life of her Eleanor could not help the stress that came on the word "will." "I will go," she said, as if she was the Queen herself. Sir Walter turned to the company. They had all wagged their heads at that word "householder." It had a comfortable, reassuring, almost cosy, sound. It called up visions of well-swept hearths with pots of good savoury broth swinging above them; it made them feel important, as citizens of a now country; and prosperous, for there would be no taxes to pay. Now he broke into his broader Devon as he told them that where they went there also their wives could go, their daughters, and even other people's daughters as part of their households. Still more they approved I

of this. Take the "women, the people who kept the hearth and made the broth, and they «i\v themselves house-, holders to a man. A cheer ran round? the room. "And, my masters," Sir Walter'svoice took on a richer note, "to Mistress Eleanor here and your wives and daughters will he the glory of founding a colony with an illustrious name. A name that will sound in your cars as a peal of bells. Her Most Gracious. Majesty has granted me a boon. Our plantation in the New World is to bo called Virginia." "Virginia," they all shouted, and made the rafters ring with their roars. Master White shouted for more, and yet more wine. The noise was terrific. Eleanor, her heart pounding, her head swimming, escaped and flew upstairs to Rose warming her great four-post bed. "Rose., J am going to the new country. Ananias is going and me with him. IMant wilii women " Rreathlessly *he poured it oufa to Rose as she had always poured out everything. Hose listened. It was as if John was back again, she reflected; he would come bursting in with great news just like this. Hie waited till Eleanor had done, then said just the one thing Eleanor was longing above all things to hear. "I'll go with you, Mistress Eleanor." Master White seemed very full of his grand-daughter, thought Mistress Payne. He had come down to the farm to give her news of Rose. It was kind of him, she said to herself, as she curtsied and made him welcome; but except about the baby ho was slow to answer questions. Rose was well, he said. She had helped build the house and now she was helping Eleanor with her baby. "The first English child to be born on American soil," said he proudly. "Think of that, Mistress Payne, the first " And had the.y found Grenvillc's fifteen men awaiting them? inquired Mistress Payne. Well, no, they hadn't. The fifteen men had disappeared. There wasn't a trace of them. What had beeomo of them? Master White had no idea. Was (lie country as line as they had heard? Were the colonists happy? Were the Indians friendly? Master White thought so. There was bickering, of course. Men did not become angels in the new country. They were to move, inland as soon as he had gone, for the Roanoke site was marshy and bleak; they were to carvo the name of the place they had gone to in the trees for his guidance. And they were to put a cross if they were in distress. He, meanwhile, had come back for more food. More food, a cross of distress, Roanoke bleak and marshy . . . Where was the corn like bulrushes, the grapes ripening by the water's edge. Hut Master White was a grandfather again. "Virginia we called her. The glorious name. Three months after we got there she came, and we made a stockade like a forest round her " "When do you start hack, sir?" put in Mistress Payne. Stockade . . . stockades were for protection. "As soon as may be," said Master White, and strode away. That was the last she saw of him. The Manor was shut up. The bushes where Eleanor and Hose had hidden grew to thickets. The place fell aslcc.p.

OUR YOUNG ARTISTS. j KATHLEEN DORM AN: lam struck by thrco things when looking at your sketches, Kathlce.n. First of all, you press too heavily on your paper and this results in thick, uneven lines; secondly, your shading is too scratchy, and, lastly, strive towards a firmer outline. Once you have mastered theso points you will notice, a great improvement in your work. I will look forward to receiving another drawing from you shortly. PHYLLIS GTANELLI: The outline of your silhouette was too smudgy for good reproduction, l'hyllis, and the "archer's" features were not well enough defined. The humorous drawing was much batter, and I would like to see what you , could do with an original subject. The "House on the Hill" is much more strik-1 ing, and will be published. 1 ZOE HARRIS: I am using the sketch] of the house, /oc, but I did not think that the drawing of the dog was up; to the same, standard. KATHLEEN OLDS: "Little New Year" was not up to your usual standard, Kathleen, but I am using the sketch of the little girl and her doll. S. FOSTER: There was not quito enough interest in your drawing of the seaside see.ne, Shirley, for mo to publish it. Try and make your sketches just a little bigger next time. The "House in the Pines" will aco print.

From time to time she heard rumours; \ Master White had never gone—had never come back; Sir Walter Raleigh had sent three shiploads of food, but the crew had, as usual, turned pirate; that he had two more, but they were kept in harbour, by order, to be ready for the Spaniards. No one could think or speak of anything but the Spanish Armada. Was it or was it not coming to invade them? There was no attention to spare for Roanolcc, though it was said that Raleigh never forgot. The months went on; summer followed winter and winter summer. At last, four..years later, John White sailed into Plymouth Ray. TTe had again made the voyage to Virginia. Mistress Payne waited. Now she would hear something. She might even see Rose pick up her skirts and rush up the path to the door as she always did. Nothing whatever happened. Ono day she could wait no longer. She made the journey to Plymouth to sec a seagoing friend. Yes, said the man, Master White had reached Roanoke right enough. There was news, and yet, in a manner of speaking, there was not. No, lie wouldn't call it good. Nor yet so kad. Ho would say it was no news at all. "Better see the letter wrote to Master Hakluyt by Master White," ho finished up, looking at her mystified face- "There's a copy lying near." This is what she read: "Before we could get to the place where our planters were left it was so exceeding dark that we overshot the place a quarter of a mile; there wo

ALONE. (By Eileen Taylor, Rtipby Itond, Birkenhead, N. 5.) I'm only a cold and lonesome tree, There's none in tho world that ear© for ine, Out on the moor in the cold and wet. . . One cald wintry day in June, as I wandered aimlessly across a bleak moor, down in tho south of "Old England," my gaze fell upon one solitary tree, strikingly lonesome in that wide, open space. Tho wind whistled a tunc in sudden glee, twirling a few golden-brown leaves to Mother Earth, ami then was off again, only to return in a more mischievous mood. It reminded me of a lively gnome, at play among the leaves, and as 1 watched, this poor, cold tree, swayed her boughs in a long-drawn sigh. She let fall the last of her lovely mantle, the last ol her red-lined feathers fluttered to the "round. I turned away and hastily brushed a hot tear from my cheek. Mother Nature had completed her work.

espied towards the north end of the I island a great fire through the woods | to the which we presently rowed. When wo came over against it we let fall our grapnel near the shore and sounded with a trumpet and a call and afterwards many familiar tunes of songs, and called them friendly. ]Jut we had no answer. We saw the print of the savages' feet . . . we entered upon a tree, in the very brows of which were carved these fair lioman letters C.H.0.. but without any cross or sign of distress. "Wo pawed towards the place where they were left in sundry houses, but we found the houses taken down and the place very strongly enclosed with a high palisado of great trees. From there wo went along the waterside to tsce if we could find any of their boats or pinnaces, but we. eouM perceive no sign of them. Some of our sailors told us they had found where divers chests had been hidden and long si thence digged up again and broken up, and the goods in them spoiled and scattered about. But nothing le.ft of such things the savages knew any use of " Mi>trcss Payne did not mad any more. "We called them friendly, but had 110 answer ..." Four vears <licv had been left; four years before Master White, brought his promised relief. What had become of them? To her the answer lay quite clearly in the last sentence she rca/l: "Nothing was left of such things the savages knew any use of " She thanked the seagoing friend and took her way home. Tho grcc.n lands of Virginia had closed over Ro#*c and Eleanor just as the green waters of the Atlantic had closed over John.