And no sooner had the clerk given out the first verse of that great hymn, than it was taken up by five hundred voices within the church, in bass and tenor, treble and alto (for every one could sing in those days, and the west-country folk, as now, were fuller than any of music), the chant was caught up by the crowd outside, and rang away over roof and river, up to the woods of Annery, and down to the marshes of the Taw, in wave on wave of harmony.
And as it died away, the shipping in the river made answer with their thunder, and the crowd streamed out again toward the Bridge Head, whither Sir Richard Grenville, and Sir John Chichester, and Mr.
Salterne, the Mayor, led the five heroes of the day to await the pageant which had been prepared in honor of them.

And as they went by, there were few in the crowd who did not press forward to shake them by the hand, and not only them, but their parents and kinsfolk who walked behind, till Mrs.Leigh, her stately joy quite broken down at last, could only answer between her sobs, "Go along, good people--God a mercy, go along--and God send you all such sons!" "God give me back mine!" cried an old red-cloaked dame in the crowd; and then, struck by some hidden impulse, she sprang forward, and catching hold of young Amyas's sleeve-- "Kind sir! dear sir! For Christ his sake answer a poor old widow woman!" "What is it, dame ?" quoth Amyas, gently enough.
"Did you see my son to the Indies ?--my son Salvation ?" "Salvation ?" replied he, with the air of one who recollected the name.
"Yes, sure, Salvation Yeo, of Clovelly.

A tall man and black, and sweareth awfully in his talk, the Lord forgive him!" Amyas recollected now.

It was the name of the sailor who had given him the wondrous horn five years ago.
"My good dame," said he, "the Indies are a very large place, and your son may be safe and sound enough there, without my having seen him.
I knew one Salvation Yeo.

But he must have come with--By the by, godfather, has Mr.Oxenham come home ?" There was a dead silence for a moment among the gentlemen round; and then Sir Richard said solemnly, and in a low voice, turning away from the old dame,-- "Amyas, Mr.Oxenham has not come home; and from the day he sailed, no word has been heard of him and all his crew." "Oh, Sir Richard! and you kept me from sailing with him! Had I known this before I went into church, I had had one mercy more to thank God for." "Thank Him all the more in thy life, my child!" whispered his mother.
"And no news of him whatsoever ?" "None; but that the year after he sailed, a ship belonging to Andrew Barker, of Bristol, took out of a Spanish caravel, somewhere off the Honduras, his two brass guns; but whence they came the Spaniard knew not, having bought them at Nombre de Dios." "Yes!" cried the old woman; "they brought home the guns, and never brought home my boy!" "They never saw your boy, mother," said Sir Richard.
"But I've seen him! I saw him in a dream four years last Whitsuntide, as plain as I see you now, gentles, a-lying upon a rock, calling for a drop of water to cool his tongue, like Dives to the torment! Oh! dear me!" and the old dame wept bitterly.
"There is a rose noble for you!" said Mrs.Leigh.
"And there another!" said Sir Richard.