Now of all that befell my father during his eight years of wandering I cannot speak certainly, for he was very silent on the matter, though I may have need to touch on some of his adventures.  But I know it is true that he fell under the power of the Holy Office, for once when as a little lad I bathed with him in the Elbow Pool, where the river Waveney bends some three hundred yards above this house, I saw that his breast and arms were scored with long white scars, and asked him what had caused them.  I remember well how his face changed as I spoke, from kindliness to the hue of blackest hate, and how he answered speaking to himself rather than to me.

‘Devils,’ he said, ’devils set on their work by the chief of all devils that live upon the earth and shall reign in hell.  Hark you, my son Thomas, there is a country called Spain where your mother was born, and there these devils abide who torture men and women, aye, and burn them living in the name of Christ.  I was betrayed into their hands by him whom I name the chief of the devils, though he is younger than I am by three years, and their pincers and hot irons left these marks upon me.  Aye, and they would have burnt me alive also, only I escaped, thanks to your mother—­but such tales are not for a little lad’s hearing; and see you never speak of them, Thomas, for the Holy Office has a long arm.  You are half a Spaniard, Thomas, your skin and eyes tell their own tale, but whatever skin and eyes may tell, let your heart give them the lie.  Keep your heart English, Thomas; let no foreign devilments enter there.  Hate all Spaniards except your mother, and be watchful lest her blood should master mine within you.’

I was a child then, and scarcely understood his words or what he meant by them.  Afterwards I learned to understand them but too well.  As for my father’s counsel, that I should conquer my Spanish blood, would that I could always have followed it, for I know that from this blood springs the most of such evil as is in me.  Hence come my fixedness of purpose or rather obstinacy, and my powers of unchristian hatred that are not small towards those who have wronged me.  Well, I have done what I might to overcome these and other faults, but strive as we may, that which is bred in the bone will out in the flesh, as I have seen in many signal instances.

There were three of us children, Geoffrey my elder brother, myself, and my sister Mary, who was one year my junior, the sweetest child and the most beautiful that I have ever known.  We were very happy children, and our beauty was the pride of our father and mother, and the envy of other parents.  I was the darkest of the three, dark indeed to swarthiness, but in Mary the Spanish blood showed only in her rich eyes of velvet hue, and in the glow upon her cheek that was like the blush on a ripe fruit.  My mother used to call me her little Spaniard, because of my swarthiness, that is when my father was not near, for such names