Sea-Dogs All!, by Tom Bevan
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Title: Sea-Dogs All! A Tale of Forest and Sea
Author: Tom Bevan
Release Date: June 1, 2008 [eBook #25670]
Language: English
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SEA-DOGS ALL!
A Tale of Forest and Sea
by
TOM BEVAN
Author of "Red Dickon the Outlaw," "The Fen Robbers," etc., etc.
[Frontispiece: Dolly stood near the fire, her face rosy with the heat]
Thomas Nelson and Sons London, Edinburgh, Dublin, and New York 1911
CONTENTS.
I. The Man in Black
II. The Plotters
III. Two Friends
IV. Johnnie Morgan takes a Walk
V. Master Windybank
VI. A Sinister Meeting
VII. In the Toils
VIII. Master Windybank walks abroad
IX. The Hunt
X. Master Windybank rebels
XI. Darkness and the River
XII. Snaring a Flock of Night Ravens
XIII. A Double Fight
XIV. What happened in Westbury Steeple
XV. A Letter from Court
XVI. To London Town
XVII. Sir Walter as Chaperon
XVIII. Three Broken Mariners
XIX. Paignton Rob's Story
XX. Rob dines at "Ye Swanne"
XXI. Morgan goes to Whitehall
XXII. The Queen
XXIII. Johnnie sees many Sights
XXIV. Two Chance Wayfarers
XXV. Brother Basil
XXVI. All on a bright March Morning
XXVII. In Plymouth
XXVIII. The Parlour of the "Blue Dolphin"
XXIX. The Widow's House
XXX. Ho! for the Spanish Main
XXXI. In the Bay of San Joseph
XXXII. A Glimpse of the Fabled City
XXXIII. Wandering in a Maze
XXXIV. Flood and Fever
XXXV. A Foe
XXXVI. The Attack on the Village
XXXVII. Council Fires in Two Places
XXXVIII. The Way back
XXXIX. John Oxenham's Creek
XL. A Haven of Peace
XLI. The Trap
XLII. Captives
XLIII. In Panama
XLIV. The Trial
XLV. For Faith and Country!
XLVI. The Galley Slaves
XLVII. Hernando speaks
XLVIII. The Revolt of the Slaves
XLIX. Eastward Ho!
L. Home
LI. The Forest again--and the Sea
List of Illustrations
Cover art
Dolly stood near the fire, her face rosy with the heat . . Frontispiece
The odds were hopelessly against him.
SEA-DOGS ALL!
Chapter I.
THE MAN IN BLACK.
The river-path along the Severn shore at Gatcombe was almost knee-deep with turbid water, and only a post here and there showed where river ordinarily ended and firm land began. Fishers and foresters stood in the pelting rain and buffeting wind anxiously calculating what havoc the sudden summer storm might work, helpless themselves to put forth a hand to save anything from its fury. Stout doors and firm casements (both were needed in the river-side hamlet) bent with the fury of the sou'-wester that beat upon them. The tide roared up the narrowing estuary like a mill-race, and the gale tore off the tops of the waves, raised them with the lashing raindrops, and hurled both furiously against everything that fringed the shore. Gatcombe Pill leapt and plunged muddily between its high, red banks, and the yellow tide surged up the opening and held back the seething waters like a dam. There was black sky above, and many-coloured earth and water below.
The lading jetty against the village only appeared at odd moments above the tumult of waters, and a couple of timber ships that lay on the north side, partially loaded, were plunging and leaping at their anchor cables like two dogs at the end of their chains. Great oaken logs bobbed up and down like corks, or raced with the current upstream; the product of many weeks' timber-cutting in the forest would be scattered as driftwood from Gloucester to the shores of Devon and Wales.
On the high bank above Gatcombe, one other man, half hidden by the thick trees, braved the fury of the storm. There was nothing of the fisher or forester about him; the pale, worn face and the tall, lean figure soberly clad in black betokened the monk or the scholar, but claimed no kinship with them that toiled in the woodlands or won a living from the dangerous sea. Leaning against a giant beech that rocked in wild rhythm with the storm, he watched the wind and tide at their work of devastation, an odd smile of satisfaction playing about the corners of his thin lips.
"A hundred candles to St. James for this tempest!" he murmured. "If the ships do but break loose and get aground, I will tramp Christendom for the money to build him a church." But though the man in black watched the river for the space of two hours longer, his hopes of utter destruction were unrealized; the cables held, the rain ceased, the wind abated, and the tide began to run seawards once more. Bit by bit the jetty rose above the swirling waters. Inshore the sands of the river-bed were uncovered, and the fishers and wharfmen swarmed along them and on the pier, saving from the sea the logs of oak that were within reach. For a while the man on the cliff watched them; then he turned aside into the dripping recesses of the forest. "Comfort thyself," he said, tapping his bosom as he walked; "the omens are good. What water hath commenced, the fire shall finish!"
Almost upon the instant a sturdy figure broke from the bushes above Gatcombe Pill and hurried along the cliff towards the harbour. Deep-chested, full-throated, weather-stained, compacted of brawn and sinew, he looked the ruddy-faced, daring sailor-man, every inch of him. From crown to toe he was clad in homely gray; but if, on the one hand, the ass peeps out from the borrowed lion's skin, so will royalty shine through fustian; and the newcomer had the air of a king among men. He hallooed to the ships, and then hastily scrambled down the cliff.
Only the groaning of the trees and rustling of the undergrowth hid the footfalls of the man in black from the ears of the man in gray. He was looking for him, but the time when they should meet was not yet come.
Chapter II.
THE PLOTTERS.
The morrow after the storm was windless and genial; the morning stepped out from the east bearing the promise of a fine day; the tide was running strongly to the sea. At Newnham the ferryman stood knee-deep in the water washing his boat and hoping for a fare. The man in black came down and was carried across to Arlingham. He asked many questions concerning the tides and the sands. The water ran like a mill-race round the Nab, and the stranger crossed himself when he entered the boat, and again when the ferryman took him on his back to carry him through the shallow water and the mud. He paid the penny for the passage, and then vanished quickly into the trees that shut in the village of Arlingham from the river. The boatman watched him curiously and fearfully; and when he was no longer visible he shivered, for a cold chill was running down his spine. "Seems as though I'd carried the Evil One," he muttered; "he may halloo till he's as hoarse as his black children the crows ere I trust myself on the waters with him again." He waded to his boat and rowed rapidly across stream once more.
The man in black gave neither thought nor look to the ferryman, but strode along the woodland paths like one who had not a moment to spare. The broad Roman way stretched in a bee-line from the eastern shore to the village, but the wayfarer never once set foot upon it. Swiftness and secrecy marked every movement. The sun had been above the horizon scarce an hour when the mysterious stranger knocked at the door of a farmhouse that lay about a mile from the village and northwards towards the river. It was opened on the instant by the farmer himself, and barred and chained again.
In the kitchen were four men, two of whom wore black doublet and hosen, black caps with a black feather, and were sallow-looking counterparts of the last arrival. They stood up, bowed gravely, and sat down again without speaking.
"You have kept good tryst, my sons; did any man see you?"
"Not even the eye of the sun lighted upon us; we walked by the stars," was the reply.
"Good! Now, your tidings.--Thine first, Basil."
The younger of the two men clad in black looked up. Hitherto he had maintained a strict silence, his eyes fixed on the floor. The face that was lifted to the morning light was not a pleasant one. It was pasty, colourless, and shrunken as though from long fasting, but the eyes glittered in their dull sockets like a pair of black diamonds. "Fanatic" was written large all over him. He was a monk released from his vows for the performance of special duties. His tidings were given slowly in short, terse sentences.
"Admiral Drake is at Gatcombe."
The leader nodded. "I know it; I saw him yesterday," he said.
"He hath wind of our plot and a description of your person. Sir Walter Raleigh comes up from Bristol on this morning's tide. 'Tis given out that he is visiting the Throckmortons, from which family he took his wife. The truth is, that he comes to assist the admiral against us."
"Doth he bring troops?"
"No, but the admiral hath a royal warrant empowering him to call the free foresters and miners to arms if need should arise."
"That is nothing."
"I have a list of those families that still profess the true faith. Almost to a man they place their country before their Church, and prefer to fight for their heretic Queen rather than the Holy Mother of Heaven."
"The fiery pit yawns for them, my son!"
"But there are true sheep amongst these herds of goats. Two have I brought with me. Their eyes are opened. Wisdom and far-seeing dwells with them. They value not the things of this world and the comforts of the body. They are sworn to serve the Holy Church to the death." The speaker turned to two rather hang-dog fellows who were squatted beside the hearth. "Kneel, my brothers," he cried, "and receive a blessing from Father Jerome, a saint amongst men!"
"Tush! my son," said Father Jerome; "thou dost rate my poor worth a thousand times too highly. The blessing I bestow is greater far than he is who bestows it; the gift is greater than the giver."
The whole company fell upon their knees, and Father Jerome towered above them. There was cunning in his sallow face, cruelty in the corners of his mouth. He held his hands aloft and spoke low and mysteriously.
"When the Holy Father called me and entrusted me with my present mission he gave me his blessing thrice repeated, and bestowed upon me the power of passing on that blessing to others. The blessing then that ye receive at my hands is the blessing of the Head of the Church. Kings have begged for it and have not obtained it; but ye are greater than kings." The disguised priest--for such was Father Jerome--placed his hands on them one by one and murmured a long Latin invocation. At the end of this he addressed the farmer and the two foresters, who had been beguiled into the plot, speaking in plain, forcible English.
"Your country," he exclaimed, "wallows in heresy and other deadly sins. For years hath it openly flouted and resisted the Church. The hour of retribution is near. By sword and by fire must her sins be purged. The instruments of vengeance and punishment are appointed, and the least of these am I. Before the sun hath run another yearly circle through the heavens a faithful prince shall hold power in this land. Many who are now in high estate shall be flung down, and there are some humble ones that shall be mightily exalted. Think of that, my sons, and be true to the trust reposed in you!"
Father Jerome raised up his kneeling audience with a well-chosen word of praise, promise, or encouragement for each one. Then he bade the farmer set meat and ale before the two foresters, and took his two clerical spies to the window-seat, where he conversed with them in low tones.
"Thy two recruits, son Basil, are not overburdened with brains."
"The better shall they serve our purpose, my father. We want blind tools rather than thinking men. I have them in the hollow of my hand. Thews and sinews are theirs, and an intimate knowledge of the woods. If they will but carry out my bidding without question, I shall be well content."
"Thou art right.--And now, son John, how hast thou sped upon thine errands?"
"Well, father, the bracken will be fit to cut in a month. I have ordered loads to be prepared for me in all parts of the forest. The soil of the woodlands is everywhere green with the curling fronds; and where I do not cut, the foresters and miners will be preparing heaps to carry away for litter and bedding. By the end of July the forest beneath the oaks will be covered with a carpet of stuff as combustible as tinder. Let us but fire it at Newnham, Littledean, Blakeney, Coleford, and at Speech by the courthouse, and we shall lay tens of thousands of oaks in blackened ruin. Philip of Spain has but to scatter the present small navy of England, for no more ships can be built, and there will be nothing to oppose his landing."
"Thou hast done well. Our plans are fully ripe, but apparently the time is not quite come. We will separate for a month and remain in strict hiding. The admiral's suspicions are aroused. If we suddenly disappear at the moment when he becomes active in searching for us, his fears will be allayed. But at the appointed moment we must come forth without a sign of warning, do our work, and begone again. Our tools must be frightened into secrecy. I will do that. Let us now join them at breakfast."
It was not the fault of Father Jerome that the breakfast party was not a happy affair. Perfectly at ease himself, and satisfied with his morning's work, he was in the mood for decorous jollity; but although his two immediate satellites responded to his lead, and indulged in a few feeble jests, the farmer and foresters hardly vouchsafed a word or a smile. In part, maybe, this was due to the poverty of the wit of their sable companions, but the three were obviously ill at ease. Greed and a sort of religious fanaticism had brought them into the ranks of the conspirators, but their national instincts were rebuking them each moment. They felt traitors, and not all the sophistries of the priests--which put the Church first, and country a long way after--could ease their minds of a burden of shame. The chief conspirator watched them narrowly, and some dark thoughts concerning them ran through his mind.
The morning was advancing, and it behoved the plotters to separate. The leader gave them a few words of caution and command, and then bade the farmer go to his work as though nothing unusual was afoot; the rest would vanish one by one into the surrounding woods or across the river. One of the foresters betook himself off immediately, journeying on to Frampton, where he had some relatives, his visit to them being an ostensible reason for his presence on the wrong side of the Severn. He was a hard-faced fellow, with a pair of small, greedy-looking blue eyes. Father Jerome pressed his hand very affectionately at parting, and the man found three silver shillings sticking to his palm when his hand was free again. He strode away with a buoyant step, his misgivings gone for the while.
The other woodlander arose the moment the door was closed behind his companion.
"Wait a while, my son," said Jerome.
"I have something to say before I go."
"Ah! say on." The priest's face set somewhat sternly, for he did not like the forester's manner.
The fellow began without hesitation, and spoke as a man whose mind was full of the matter whereon he talked. The three in black listened.
"Good father, I have sworn an oath to be thy servant in a certain business."
"And thou canst not break that oath without hurling thy soul to eternal damnation," was the stern rejoinder.
"It is not in my mind to break my oath."
"What then?"
"If thou wilt listen, I will show thee that perhaps it would be better to release me from my vow."
"Impossible!"
"Listen. I am pledged to do a deed that the law will hold to be treason. I place myself in secret enmity to nearly every one of my countrymen. Did they but suspect me, they would hang me without mercy. A dog in their eyes, I should meet a dog's death."
"Tut!" broke in the priest sharply, "thy reasoning is all wrong. Thou, for the sake of truth and right, art placing thyself like a second David against a host of evil men. Dost hope for their good opinion?"
"But, good father," pleaded the fellow, "it doth not appear to me that I am doing right. Queen Bess--God bless her!--lives in the hearts of us all. Why should I work her a mischief in order to advance the King of Spain, whom we cannot but hate? Now, I bethink me, I have sworn to serve my Queen, but I have given no oath of fealty to the Pope. And as for your religion, well, I am in most ways of one mind with you, and I think these Protestants to be no better than heretics. Master Basil, whose learning is wonderful, did persuade me for the nonce that my duty lay along the path you are treading; but my mind misgives me woefully, and I cannot see that it is an honest thing to work in secret against the whole body of my fellow-countrymen."
Jerome's face had darkened, and Basil's lips were working evilly.
"But the whole body of thy fellow-countrymen are wrong!" he hissed. "God hath delivered them and their country into the hands of his faithful servant Philip."
"Then why doth Admiral Drake thrash the sailors of Philip whenever he meets them? God surely only fights for the right!" replied the forester.
This was a facer for the ex-priest, and ere he could frame a retort Jerome took up the matter again. "Thou hast said that thou art willing to keep thine oath."
"Not willing, but I will not willingly break it. My heart is no longer in the enterprise. I shall be ashamed to look my neighbours in the face. I shall fear their glances and despise myself. When the pinch comes, I may turn coward and do nothing. The whisper of conscience is more terrible than the roar of a lion. What will it avail you to look for help to such a one as I?"
"If I release thee--?"
"My lips are sealed. I have learned your plans, but I am honest with you. Be honest with me, and men shall tear out my tongue before I will speak a word of you or your plot."
Jerome sat silent for a few moments. Suddenly he started up.
"Thou art an honest fellow," he exclaimed, "and I believe thee. Half-hearted men are useless to me. Thou art released from thine oath. Go!"
Basil started to protest, but his leader placed his hand on his lips. The forester went out, feeling as though a mountain had been lifted from his shoulders. He disappeared at a turn in the lane. Then Jerome spoke. "Thou art our lay-brother, Basil. That man must not cross the river."
Basil nodded and went out. Whilst Jerome yet watched him, slipping from cover to cover, the farmer re-entered, a look of mingled fear and hesitation on his face. The priest turned instantly and noticed it. He laid his hand on his shoulder. "I am not yet gone, as thou seest. There is something I would show thee before I go."
For the space of about ten minutes the two stood in silence. Then the priest said "Come," and led the farmer from the house. He followed in Basil's footsteps, and came at length to the foot of a dwarf oak. A man lay there, his eyes glazing in death. Basil was wiping a dagger in the bracken.
Jerome pointed to the dying woodsman. "That man doubted and hesitated," he said.
The farmer shuddered, and went white-faced homewards.
Chapter III.
TWO FRIENDS.
Admiral Drake sat amidst his roses, watching the tide as it raced up the river. Every day he sat thus, unless some pressing duty forbade, for the sea held first place in his heart. When the tide was out, the river was dull and dreary enough to the heart of the bold sailor. To gaze on a stretch of a mile or more of sand and mud, with a shallow, yellow stream dividing it into two unequal portions, is not exhilarating; but when the sea makes its wild rush up the estuary, quickly filling the wide river-bed from bank to bank, then the Severn is noble enough, and one looks upon it with pride. The swirl and roar of the waters was music to Sir Francis, and the tide was an old and well-beloved friend that came up daily to embrace him. The happiest of the knight's waking hours were those he spent by the side of the flowing salt stream.
There was a click at the latch of the garden gate, and a most elegant gentleman sauntered gracefully in. His doublet was of blue, slashed silk, his feathered cap was of a colour to match, and there were golden buckles to his shoes and golden hilts to sword and dagger. His beard was trimmed to a dainty point, and curling locks slightly flecked with white hung down to his broad shoulders. The admiral, in his gray homespun, his short, frizzled hair bared to the breeze, turned at the sound of approaching footsteps, caught sight of the gentleman in blue, and sprang up to greet him.
"Now the winds of heaven be thanked for wafting thee hither, dear Wat," he cried. "Thou art more welcome than a fine day."
And the bluff sailor took the dainty visitor in his arms and kissed him lovingly on both cheeks. Embrace and kiss were heartily returned, and, arm in arm, the two sought the garden seat, and sat down to gaze on the sunlit waters and exchange tidings. Raleigh--for the visitor was none other than the famous knight of Devon--placed his sword across his knee and began the conversation; the rough and ready admiral was a better listener than talker.
"The Queen hath sent thee some coils of stout rope by my hand."
"Oh!"
"She saith that she hath had no news of Spanish acorns dangling from the Dean oaks. Her words to me were: 'Tell my knight of the seas not to spare the hemp where traitors are concerned. To hang none is to let all escape, whereas to hang on reasonable suspicion is a sure way to rid his plantations of many knaves. If he should make a mistake, through excess of zeal, tell him that our pardon is assured beforehand.'"
Drake smiled. "'Tis a good thing there is but one woman in the government, and that men are entrusted with the carrying out of her orders. Beshrew me, Wat, let but a scare be started and she would hang every ill-favoured fellow she clapped eyes on."
Raleigh laughed. "Thou hast no faculty for comprehending the whimsies and oddities of womankind, especially royal womankind."
"That is but sober truth. I can see in a bee-line as well as most men, but I cannot follow all the twists and turns of our royal lady's pathway. Bethink thee how she treated me when I came home from my voyage round the world, my vessel crammed to the hatchway with Spanish treasure. Before the court she frowned on me, called me no better than a sea-thief, and threatened me with a hanging. Aboard my vessel, when none were there but Cecil, Leicester, and thyself, she praised me without stint, flattered me, well-nigh took me in her arms and kissed me, offered me knighthood, and then seized upon the best part of my hard-won spoils! Her mind doubles like a hare; there is no catching it and holding it and seeing of what colour it is. I have navigated unknown seas enough, but I should be shipwrecked in one month of court life. A palace is as full of guile as an egg is full of meat!"
The admiral was waxing warm, and his companion was laughingly enjoying his tirade.
"Every man to his trade, Frank," he said. "Thou art a striker of straight blows, and hast no cunning save when the foe is in gunshot. The sea breeze is life to thee, but some of us would choke with too much of it. We must breathe ever and anon of the scented atmosphere of courts. The turns and twists of intrigue attract us; we love to ruffle it in silk as well as in mail or in homespun. The voices and faces of fair women make music and beauty for our ears and our eyes; we love the harp and the lute as well as the mavis and throstle in the hedgerow, and we pore as diligently over a sonnet as thou dost over a sea chart."
"And that to me is a strange thing," replied Drake musingly. "Sometimes thou and I are so close in touch as to be almost one; yet, again, we find ourselves a world's space asunder: our thoughts oft run in couples like hounds, and 'tis because of such times that I love thee as a very dear brother."
Raleigh laid his hand affectionately on the admiral's shoulder. "Thou, Frank, art a man of action ever and always. When the battle is in my blood I can fight on land and sea as whole-heartedly as thou, and cry out that only such days are worth the living. Yet I am by nature a dreamer of dreams and a weaver of fancies. The soft, the still, the beautiful in the world and humankind, attract me. I would have seclusion rather than bustle and turmoil, the pen rather than the sword, the sweet whispers from a woman's lips and not the shouts of warriors. Thou dost not understand me, but I understand thee, and love thee for thy simplicity and directness. Thou art a better man than I, Frank, and the world will honour thee more than me. But let us quit this self-analysis. How art thou faring in thy mission to prevent the destruction of the forest?"
"Slowly. The forest is one vast hiding-place, and I have to deal with men who are very serpents for cunning. The leader is a Spanish priest masquerading as a gentleman, and he hath with him some of a like sort. They are for ever popping up in fresh places, but it is not easy to tell them one from another. There may be a dozen of them, or only two."
"The lesser number is the more likely. The more in a plot, the greater the danger of failure."
"So I have thought, and I put down their many appearances to the expedition with which they move. At present they can only plan mischief. There is little woody undergrowth, and the bracken is at its greenest. Ere long, however, the foresters and miners will begin the yearly cutting and drying of the bracken, which they take away and stack for the winter as bedding for themselves and their cattle. Then the danger is great indeed, and the firing of the forest an easy matter to a number of determined men skilfully posted."
"Have the conspirators many adherents?"
"I think not. The woodland folk are loyal, and have a right and proper hatred of the King of Spain. Let me but lay hands on one man and we may sleep in our beds without fear."
"And that man?"
"Is the priest, Father Jerome."
Raleigh sat up. "Canst describe him?"
"Ay. He is tall, lean, and yellow, looks a Spaniard, but speaks English as no foreigner could speak it. He hath money in plenty, and poor folk and greedy folk often fall a prey to Mammon."
"I have met this Father Jerome, unless I mistake him greatly. He is a Spaniard without doubt, and came hither first in the train of the Spanish ambassador in King Harry's reign. He came again with Philip when he took Queen Mary to wife, and stayed here the whole of that reign and much of the present. He knows our land and our language as well as thou or I, and Philip has chosen the fittest leader for his bold enterprise. Thou hast gotten a dangerous adversary; do not hold him cheaply, for he obtains a strange power over some men. 'Tis against his nature to strike openly. He works like a mole, and thou must find his place of burrowing and trap him. Meantime I commend the advice of the Queen to thee: lay all suspicious characters by the heels at once; put rogues to catch rogues, and have a care how thou walkest in the woods."
Sir Walter arose, but the admiral pressed him to stay and drink a cup of wine. So the two friends sat on a while longer, talking of old times in far-away Devon.
Hidden in the bushes on the top of the sandstone cliff that backed Drake's house was the dark figure of Basil. He wriggled thither at the moment when Raleigh lifted the garden latch.
Chapter IV.
JOHNNIE MORGAN TAKES A WALK.
At the foot of the hill leading out of Blakeney northwards towards Newnham stood a many-gabled, substantial farmhouse. A plantation of oaks backed it, and eastwards the meadows stretched away to the Severn. The house was in the possession of John Morgan, a verderer[1] of the forest, and the good folk of the forest and river were proud to point to him as a "proper figure of a man." "Johnnie," as he was familiarly styled by his associates, stood a good two inches over six feet, was straight as a fir and tough as a young oak. He had just turned his twentieth year, and was as fleet of foot as the stags that he guarded. Dark-eyed and handsome, light-hearted and jovial, a good singer of a good song, he was as jolly a companion as one might meet on a long summer's day.
The morning was hot, and the June sun almost at its zenith. The gale that had rocked the tall trees in fury but a few days before was almost forgotten in the windless weather that had succeeded it. Master Morgan had sauntered along one of the broad woodland paths, and was now lying on his back in a sweet-smelling bed of bracken, gazing up through the trees to the blue sky beyond. Johnnie was dreaming the happy dreams of youth and the summer's noontide. The blue of the heavens haloed his thoughts, and a pair of sweet blue eyes looked out from the midst of them. A sigh escaped him. "Plague on 't!" he cried petulantly, "I cannot get verses or rhymes into marching order. My head aches with a tumble of conceits and dainty fancies. I could whisper a thousand pretty things to yonder perky robin; I cannot give tongue to one of them when Mistress Dorothy turns her eyes upon me; and now that my heart yearns to set them in verse for her reading, I cannot frame a line that doth not limp and stumble. What a thing it is that I can sing the tears into mine eyes with another fellow's verses and cannot build a couplet of mine own." Johnnie closed his eyes, puckered his brow, and thought hard.
For the better part of an hour Morgan had the cool nook in the woodland all to himself, and he dreamt of a pair of blue eyes, rhymed them with "skies," joined "love" with "dove," "sweet" with "fleet," "rosy" with "posy," and "heart" with "part," and cudgelled his brains for images and conceits that would express in some scant measure the charms of pretty Mistress Dorothy Dawe. But his lines would not prance and curvet as he wished them to do; they laboured along in a heavy, cart-horse fashion, so that Johnnie at length reluctantly recalled his wandering wits to the consideration of the practical things of life. And, immediately upon doing so, he became conscious of the presence of an intruder upon his privacy. Some one was moving very stealthily through the bracken; the young forester detected the quick breathing of a man and he held his own breath in an instant, whilst his body remained as rigid as though it had been a fallen log of oak. He cast his eye down the line of buttons on the front of his doublet and carefully scanned his belt. It held no weapon save a hunting-knife. His hearing became doubly acute at a sign of danger, and he fixed the spot from which each faint rustle proceeded. Meanwhile his brain was busy. Who should be stealing along within a few yards of the pathway? No game was afoot in the immediate neighbourhood, and no forester would be worming himself along in such a fashion. An honest man would walk upright. "This fellow is a rogue," commented Morgan. The bracken fronds curled high above him, and he knew that he was securely hidden. The rustling sounds circled round rather than approached him, and they finally ceased at a spot on the edge of the pathway about twenty yards below where Morgan lay listening.
The forester remained very still; the other made no sign. Morgan came to the conclusion that his presence was unsuspected, so he lay in wait to see what was afoot. Time flew on; to one, at least, the silence became irksome.
Sounds at last! Some one was coming down the pathway humming a song. The spy--for such he was--stirred. Morgan noiselessly raised himself on his elbow. The singer came on; his voice was rich and musical, and the young fellow's ears tingled with pleasure. He ventured to peep above the bracken. A dark form was half visible in front of him, and the face was turned towards the direction whence the song was coming. The head disappeared; Morgan ducked also. He could give no guess as to the identity of the man who lay before him. But his mind was made up as to the spy's intentions. Villainy was plainly foreshadowed. He drew his knife from his belt. The footfalls of the traveller were now audible. He came abreast of the lurking foe; he passed him. There was a sudden leap; then another. A steel blade flashed in the sunlight. The song ceased and the singer turned. Another second and the dagger would have been in his breast. But at the fateful moment of time the stroke was arrested by Morgan's hand. The would-be assassin turned with the hiss and wriggle of a viper; his strength was astonishing, and, ere Morgan was aware, the sharp stab entered his own arm. He loosened his grip with an exclamation of pain. The spy darted like a black shadow into the trees--and was gone.
After an instant of hesitation Morgan and the stranger dashed after him. They ran hither and thither, but found nothing. On the pathway they met again, and, for the first time, spoke. He whose life had been attempted took Morgan's wounded arm in his hands. "I owe thee, if not a life, at least a whole skin," he said. "I am deeply thy debtor."
"Sir Walter Raleigh can owe nothing to a forest man," exclaimed Morgan.
"Ah! thou knowest me. What is thy name?"
"John Morgan, heart and soul at your service!"
"I have heard of thee from my kinsman, and the reports were of an excellent quality. Come, let me see to thy hurt. We can gossip afterwards."
Soldiers and huntsmen are usually adepts at rough and ready surgery; the flow of blood from Morgan's wound was stanched and the injured limb bound up. Sir Walter inquired how he had so providentially got upon the track of the spy, and Johnnie poured out the story of his poetic difficulties. The knight laughed heartily, and offered his help.
"I am a bit of a rhymster, as thou knowest," he said. "What is the name of the bonny maiden whose eyes have driven thee to verse-making?"
"Mistress Dorothy Dawe," replied the forester a little sheepishly--"a sweet wench, Sir Walter, as e'er the sun shone upon. And I thought her name as pretty as her face, but, plague on't, I cannot fix a rhyme to 't."
"And there I sympathize with thee most heartily, Master Morgan. When I was of thine age and went a-sweethearting, my own fancy lighted upon a dainty damosel yclept Dorothy, and, like thee, I found the name most unreasonable in the matter of rhyme and rhythm. Cut it down to 'Dolly,' and that most unkind rhyme 'folly' straightway dings in one's ears."
"How didst thou surmount the difficulty?"
"How? By keeping the name well in the middle of my line. But there are a hundred pretty appellations that befit a maiden. Thou canst call her thy 'sun,' thy 'moon,' thy 'star,' thy 'light, 'life,' 'goddess,' and so on through a very bookful of terms. Shall I make thee a verse as we jog along?"
"A thousand thanks! but no. I will stand on mine own footing, or stand not at all. I will win the wench by mine own parts or merits, or else wish her joy with a better man. She shall love me decked in mine own plain russet, not in velvet and laces borrowed from another's wardrobe."
"Valiantly spoken, Master Morgan. I like thy spirit, and, beshrew me, 'twill serve thee better with a sensible maiden than any amount of pretty speeches and cooing verses. 'Tis a poor man that hath not faith in himself. In wooing, as in fighting, 'tis the brave heart and the honest soul that gain the clay; and the quick, strong arm serves the world better than the glib tongue. But let us get to this business that brought us together this morning. Thou dost not know my assailant?"
"Not from Adam. Hath your worship no knowledge of him?"
"No certain knowledge, Master Morgan; but I can give a shrewd guess or two concerning him. Thou hast heard of the plot of King Philip to destroy the forest?"
"Ay, the rumour was abroad strong enough in the springtime, but since Admiral Drake came down I have heard nothing. I thought the rascal plotters had fled, for 'tis well known the health of a Spaniard suffers grievously if he do but breathe the same air as our gallant sailor."
"That is so; but some are of tougher constitutions than others, and they do not sicken in a day. The fellow who hath left his mark upon thee is an emissary of Spain. I did not know my life was threatened, but the admiral may find a foe in any thicket. I am heartily sorry the villain escaped us."
"I am downright ashamed on 't!" cried Johnnie. He drew himself up to his full height and stretched out a brawny arm. "I ought to have crushed him 'twixt finger and thumb as I would a wasp. A lean, shrivelled, hole-and-corner coward!"
"But as strong and supple as a wild cat," commented Raleigh.
"Ay, and he left the mark of his claws behind him," added Morgan. "He was no weakling."
"And he is not the only one lying in wait; nor is he the master hand in this business. You verderers must bestir yourselves, or that which is entrusted to you will go up to the heavens in smoke. I will wend with thee to Newnham. The admiral goes thither on the tide this afternoon on the Queen's business, and 'twill be as well that he, and those that come to meet him, should see evidence of the activity of our secret foes."
So the knight and Master Morgan mended their pace along the woodland way.
[1] A warden of the forest and an administrator of "forest law."
Chapter V.
MASTER WINDYBANK.
"Then thou dost refuse to listen to my suit, Mistress Dorothy?"
"Refuse! Alack, good Master Windybank, what a word to utter. Look at yonder sundial and thou wilt see that I have hearkened most patiently for more than an hour." Mistress Dorothy opened her blue eyes very widely, and her tone was a trifle indignant.
"Ay, but there is listening and listening, mistress," was the testy response.
"And surely my listening deserves commendation, seeing that I made no interruption, scarcely speaking a word."
"But I wanted thee to speak, to interrupt, to contradict, to argue. Thy silence betokened indifference. I had rather that thou hadst flown into a temper and bidden me begone than sat mum all the while." Windybank jumped up from the garden seat and began to pace to and fro, to the peril of Dorothy's flower-beds.
"But why should I argue or contradict or fly into a passion if thou dost tell me my eyes are blue? 'Tis the truth." Dorothy opened them wider, and made them look more innocent and beautiful than ever.
"Was that all I said for the space of an hour?" was the sullen rejoinder.
"No," said the cool little maiden, "'twas not; but thou didst offer no ground for argument. I heard a catalogue of virtues recited, and was bidden to believe that mine own small person gave lodging and nourishment to them all. Well, in good faith, sir, 'tis my earnest hope that some are guests in my heart, and I would fain believe that I give harbourage to all the noble train. Thou didst speak at some length of thyself, thy hopes and aspirations, they were such as would become thy youth and station: why should I quarrel with thee concerning them? Again, I had a list of thy possessions, the tale of gold in thy coffers. Should I give thee the lie over thy arithmetic? Thy uncle is rich, and thou art his heir. Shall I lose my temper because of John Windybank's money?"
The youth turned fiercely upon the maiden and gripped her by the shoulders so that she winced with the pain. "I--told--thee--that--I--loved--thee!" he said with deliberate emphasis. "What hast thou to say to that?"
"That a maid is honoured by the affection of any good man."
"Dost thou love me?"
"No," said Dorothy, rising also and removing his hands.
Windybank's eyes were blue like those he confronted, but they were as shifty as the maiden's were steady, and whilst the blue of hers deepened with anger, his assumed a greenish tint that was both uncomely and cruel. For a moment he stared into the azure deeps before him, trying to fathom them. He failed.
"Would 'No' have been Jack Morgan's answer?" he asked.
Dorothy's eyes flashed, but her lips remained closed. She showed no signs of anything save anger. The baffled lover lost his head, and with it went his common sense and veneer of gentlemanly breeding.
"Silence is answer enough," he snarled. "Morgan's black eyes and swarthy face have bewitched thee as thou hast bewitched me. Well, take thy choice between us. He hath the start of me in inches, but a moon-calf would hardly benefit by bargaining wits with him--a grinning, guzzling giant whose chief delight is singing songs in a tavern or wrestling with brawny clowns as empty-headed as himself!"
Windybank paused for breath, and Dorothy faced him as unflinchingly as before, her lips curling in contempt.
"Hast nothing to say now?" he went on. "Have I not given thee matter for contradiction, fuel to feed the fires of thine anger?"
"John Morgan needs no woman's help," she said quietly.
"Neither help of man nor woman shall avail him ere long. Hark'ee, mistress" (he lowered his voice): "there is power awaiting the man bold enough to make a venture to obtain it. Look for the day when I am thy master. And tell some others to look to their heads. I'll break thy spirit yet, and see fear in thy blue eyes instead of scorn. I am no braggart!"
"But thou art a coward!" said Dorothy, whose face had grown very white. "Think not that I shall feel anything save scorn for the man who threatens a girl and slanders the absent. Thou art our neighbour, else I would call a servant to put thee forth on to the highway. Begone!"
Master Windybank turned to go. It was time, for Johnnie Morgan and Sir Walter could be seen making their way towards the house door. "Tell thy long-legged swashbuckler of our meeting," he sneered.
"I do not fear thee enough to call in a champion," cried Dorothy calmly. "Yonder is the gate."
The rejected suitor strode off. The maiden ran into a little arbour and had a good cry. "Sweet seventeen" does not like to be bullied and threatened by a man in whom her quick eyes have discerned the possibilities of a thorough villain.
The little shower of anger and wounded pride lasted about three minutes. Then sunny thoughts broke through the clouds, and presently the sky was clear again. "Johnnie is come!" said Dorothy's heart. "Sir Walter and Master Morgan are in the house," murmured Dorothy's lips. "I must see to my duties as hostess, and I do not want to be quizzed about tear-stains. Plague take that little Windybank!" A dainty foot was stamped quite viciously. "I hope Johnnie will cudgel him. A whipping would do him good!" Dorothy sat with folded hands and pleasantly contemplated the corrective operation. Then a voice was heard in the garden calling her name. She listened. "Only nurse!" she murmured in a disappointed tone.
An old crone with a wrinkled but good-natured face came along to the arbour. "Dolly, sweetheart," she cried, "dost thou not know who is within?"
"I saw Sir Walter turn in at the gate to speak to father."
"Hoighty-toity!" exclaimed the old dame. "Saw Sir Walter, did we! And what of the head and pair of shoulders that stood above those of the knight? We did not see them!"
"Was it Master Morgan with him, Peggy?" asked Dorothy unconcernedly.
"Ask him who ran away just now," snapped Peggy. "I saw the toady little villain sneak off. I'd ha' given my Sunday kirtle to my worst enemy if Johnnie had espied him and known that he and thee had been sitting cheek by jowl for an hour."
"Master Windybank is our neighbour," said Dorothy haughtily, "and he comes hither with my father's consent."
"Ay, men are as blind as owls to each other's failings," was the tart response. "But I can see through a quick-set hedge as far as most folks, and know when a rascal lies in hiding behind one. Get thee indoors and talk to Master Morgan, an honest fellow whom thy mother--God rest her soul!--loved before death took her from us."
But Dorothy refused to be hurried. Peggy had loved her and mothered her since she was a tiny prattler of three, and she often found her, as she declared to her gossips, "a handful." Peggy, angry with her nursling, turned to go, but she discharged a telling shot at parting. "Very well!" she cried, "I'll go and bind up Master Morgan's wounds myself. One of the bravest knights in England is attacked by a Spanish giant in the forest. A brave lad jumps in to save him, and receives the dagger in his own body. He comes to those who should love him, to have the flow of his precious blood stanched; but no, good lack; we love not brave lads--we dally away God's good time with cowards and rascals!"
"Peggy! Peggy!" cried Dorothy, and the blue eyes were running over again, and the cheeks were pale as a ghost's, "is Master Morgan wounded?"
"He may be dying; the dagger perhaps was poisoned," said Peggy. "I'll go and kiss the brave lad whilst he has wit enough left to know me. Stay thou here, mistress; only loving hands must tend the brave!"
But Dorothy flew after her and clutched her arm. "Kiss me, Peggy!" she wailed, "kiss me!" But Peggy refused.
"You shall not touch him, Peggy; you are my nurse, but I am his. Do you hear?"
But the old woman was deaf, and she stalked on with her thin nose in the air. Dorothy clung to her, and they reached the house together. It so happened that the story of the attack had been told to Dorothy's father, and Sir Walter was getting a little fun at the expense of Johnnie and his wrestlings with the muse of poetry. A lively, good-humoured sally, at the moment when Dorothy's trembling limbs carried her over the threshold, evoked a peal of stentorian laughter from Master Morgan's capacious lungs. The tearful maid stood bewildered for an instant, then a roar from all three men brought the colour back swiftly to her cheeks. Johnnie Morgan dying? The wicked rascal was convulsed with merriment, and his friends, who should be sorrowing for his untimely fate, were as merry as he! With an indignant look at the chuckling Peggy, the maiden turned and fled into the garden again. But Master Morgan, who had been anxiously listening for her amidst all the chatter and uproar, heard the light patter of her footsteps upon the flagged courtyard. He sprang to the window, caught sight of the flying figure, felt his heart beating like a great drum, murmured an apology to his companions, and darted out of the room, almost laying Peggy full length on the threshold as he ran off.
Chapter VI.
A SINISTER MEETING.
When Master Windybank left the quaint, riverside garden of Captain Dawe, he was feeling about as amiable as a wolf might feel who has just been scared from the side of a lamb by the timely arrival of a huge sheep-dog. He growled with anger, showed his teeth for an instant, then slunk away with his tail between his legs. He was a spiteful, malevolent creature, cunning, unprincipled, and tainted with cowardice. He had pluck of the wolfish sort, and could fight desperately if cornered; but he shunned the open unless hard pressed, and preferred snapping at an opponent's heels to flying in his face. He was a dangerous foe, and pretty Dorothy had gone far towards making one of him.
In no pleasant frame of mind, Andrew Windybank strode up the high street of the town. Few of the townsfolk gave him a good-day; he was not a popular personage. For one thing, he was a Littledean man and not of the river-side; his family was purse-proud and tyrannical; worst of all in the eyes of a Pope-hating people, the Windybank family still clung to the old faith. Young Master Andrew was quite accustomed to cold looks, and, as a rule, they troubled him not at all. He was by nature reserved and uncommunicative, and he was sufficiently well satisfied with himself to care but little for the opinion of other people. He turned aside from the town and breasted the steep hill that led to Littledean.
Windybank had not walked through the town with his ears shut, although he had studiously kept his eyes lowered. More than once he had heard the name of his rival mentioned, and each time the speaker's tones had expressed admiration and affection. The angry young gentleman knew nothing of Morgan's exploit, but the local gossips had seen the forester pass through, and one had succeeded in getting an account of the morning's affray. Johnnie was more than ever a popular hero. It was unfortunate, perhaps, for Dorothy and her rival suitors that Morgan's arm and Windybank's pride had both been wounded on the same morning. The rejected lover had always envied and hated Morgan because of his popularity; the events of the morning were rapidly turning that hatred into a sort of malevolent frenzy. His heart burned with rage and jealousy as he went rapidly homewards.
Now, a man's heart will sometimes be attuned to goodness, and his whole nature, being aglow with conscious virtue, will yearn for some outlet for the kindliness that wells up within him. None is offered, and the virtuous fountain trickles itself dry, and no one is a whit the wiser or better. Anon, the same heart breeds envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness, and straightway comes the chance of working evil. The temptation is great, the opportunity is eagerly seized, and wickedness is done; it is so easy to step into the "broad way," so difficult to find footing in the "strait and narrow path."
Andrew Windybank was not a good man, but apt opportunity led him farther astray than, in the depths of his heart, he ever intended to go. His feet were treading the paths of his own domains. His ancestral home, Dean Tower, raised its dark red walls before him. Some of the bitterness was gone from his thoughts. Visions of the wealth, wherein he was superior to his rival and the maiden who had flouted his advances, were easing the wounds in his pride.
A spare figure, garbed in black, stepped from behind a clump of bushes, and stood bareheaded in the pathway.
"God be with thee, Master Windybank, and St. James be thine aid!" exclaimed a harsh voice. Basil confronted him.
Windybank's first feeling was one of annoyance. Basil and his master, Father Jerome, had visited Dean Tower before, and although they had come and gone in secret and by night, yet some suspicion of these Spanish visits had got abroad. The Dean men were proud of their magnificent sweep of forest-clad hills and dales, and prouder still of the oaks that gave their beloved England her impregnable "wooden walls." They were wild with anger and indignation when the first rumours of King Philip's plot came to their ears. Now they were inclined to treat the daring project with quiet contempt, but Windybank knew that scant mercy would be shown a forest man who should be so unspeakably treacherous as to favour the scheme, even by so little as holding converse with one of the hated plotters.
These thoughts running through his mind, Master Andrew did not return the Spaniard's salutation, but waved him aside and endeavoured to continue his way. Basil barred the path, his black plumed hat still in his hand, and his face wearing a caricature of a smile.
"One faithful son of the Church should not refuse greeting to a brother," he said.
"What dost thou want?" was the curt response.
"I am come upon business that hath the blessing of the Holy Father."
"I'll not listen!"
Windybank thrust out his arm to push his unwelcome companion aside. Basil took him by the shoulders and stared into his face with an intentness that made the young fellow fancy that the fierce, black orbs confronting him were burning holes in his brain. For two minutes, that seemed two full hours, the gaze was concentrated upon him. Windybank felt his body shrinking into a smaller compass under the fascination. His breath came thickly, his knees trembled, and his heart laboured in its beating.
"The Holy Father hath sent a message to thee."
"I have heard it," was slowly gasped out.
"He hath sent another. Thou darest not refuse to listen." The ex-monk's hand was uplifted in warning. "Shall I be forced to curse thee as thou standest?" he whispered. "'Tis obey, and be blessed above measure; or refuse, and--thou knowest the penalty; I will not speak it here. Listen! Father Jerome and I will come to thee at midnight. Thou wilt meet us at thy gate and show us to a chamber where we may confer in secret. Remember!"
Windybank felt the iron hand lifted from his shoulder. Basil was gone. For a minute he stared blankly at the bush behind which he had disappeared. A warning signal, "At midnight, remember!" came to his ears, and awoke him from his half-stupor. He shook himself, tried to answer, uttered no word, then passed on. He entered his house with a face that matched his ruff in its sickly yellow colouring.
Chapter VII.
IN THE TOILS.
That afternoon the house of Captain Dawe was filled with visitors more or less illustrious. The dignitaries of the forest and the river were assembled in solemn conclave. The scare caused by the first rumours of the Spanish plot was revived in tenfold magnitude. Morgan's wounded arm was a mute witness to the daring and activity of the foe. The knight and the forester could describe every lineament of the would-be assassin. The yellow, parchment face, the spare, sinewy body clad in black doublet and hosen, had been seen for a moment by many a forester. And the woodland men, brimful of superstition, had already invested him with supernatural powers.
A belated swineherd had gone in terror to his master with a story that he had come upon the "men in black" dancing beneath an oak, enveloped in blue flames, and that the smell of the "brimstone" had laid him on the ground in a stupor from sunset to moonrise, more than an hour after! The following day, in the early forenoon, he had led a trembling party to the spot, and, sure enough, there was a blackened circle in the bracken and the charred bark and singed leaves of the tree to testify to the truth of his tale. Neither swineherd nor shepherd nor forester had dared to pass the tree from that hour. The woodsman's story was not all exaggeration. He had actually stumbled upon the two villains, Basil and John, trying the kindling properties of the bracken, and he had promptly fallen in a swoon from sheer terror. By the common folk his account was believed ad literam, and not all the better sort saw the true inwardness of the occurrence. So the assembly had serious matter for thought and discussion.
The leaders saw the gravity of the situation, and their apprehensions grew when they found that those who best knew the forest were becoming rapidly infected with superstitious fears. As a race the Dean men were brave and tenacious--centuries of border warfare had made them so--but their very life amidst the gloom of the trees and the roaring of the streams, their brains teeming with mythic tales of the dark, deep pools and echoing caves, made them ready believers in the "uncanny." The forest could only be guarded by those who knew its devious ways; the number of such warders was limited. Now it would be impossible to get any man to keep a lonely watch; sentinels must be posted in groups for mutual comfort and assistance, seeing that the tangible danger of Basil's dagger was to be feared as much as the intangible perils that sprang from the imagination. To group the watchers was to narrow the guarded area, and it was plain to the council that, at night especially, little of the rolling tract of hill and valley could be patrolled; the foe would have fairly free range.
One precaution could be taken, and that was promptly done. Orders were issued that no bracken was to be cut except with the direct sanction of the admiral. When cut it was to be carried green, and dried away from the trees. Large rewards were also offered to any man who could bring any "man in black," alive or dead, to the admiral. Visions of high preferment were opened out to those of gentle blood. Suspected persons in the forest area were to be closely watched, and most houses professing the Romish faith were under suspicion.
Johnnie Morgan spent but little time in the society of the volatile Dorothy. His heart was full of love, but his head was overloaded with affairs of state, and the pain in his arm filled the air with "phantoms" in black that blotted out the sweeter picture of a teasing "fairy" in white. The admiral, never so happy as when on the water, went back to Gatcombe on the tide. Sir Walter tramped through the woods with Morgan, and, now that the council was over, he came back to the lighter topics of poetry and love-making.
"Well, Master Morgan," he cried merrily, "and how didst thou fare in the pretty arbour in the garden?"
Johnnie's face dropped to a gloomy length. "But indifferently, sir knight. The maid will not be wooed. She is as fickle as April."
"Then catch her just when she melts into tears; 'tis the more propitious time. Surely there was one little shower over thy wounded arm. What advantage didst thou reap from it?"
"Why, none," mourned Johnnie. "'Twas like this. I had wit enough to see that my unfortunate condition gave me a chance, and, I give thee my word, I manoeuvred to make the best on't. The wench seemed melting with pity, and her eyes were moist with kindness, so I made the plunge. But, gramercy! I found myself in a very thorn bush, and hardly escaped without a scratching. She'll ha' none of me!"
Johnnie's brown face was a study. Raleigh glanced at it, and laughed heartily.
"Keep heart, friend," he said. "Thou wilt find that 'tis as hard a matter to embrace a wayward fairy as to lay a sooty goblin by the heels. But thou'lt do both; a knowing imp hath just whispered the news in mine ears."
The forester's face beamed. "Now Heaven bless thee for a cheerful companion!" he cried. "By St. George! I'll do both."
And so the twain wandered on.
At Dean Tower, Andrew Windybank passed an uncomfortable afternoon. His meeting with the dangerous Basil had affected him more than his rejection by Dorothy. As the day advanced his agitation increased. He knew of the meeting at Captain Dawe's. No invitation had been extended to him, and he was aware from this that his loyalty was suspected. Tidings of the attack upon Raleigh went the round of the household. Later, towards evening, a fisherman came up from Newnham with salmon, and he was full of gossip concerning the deliberations of the admiral's council. The fellow dropped some broad hints that stung the ears of the Windybank domestics. At supper Master Andrew felt that his attendants were uneasy and suspicious, and this increased his agitation. Night and its solitude brought him no relief. The household betook itself to rest. The master alone remained up and awake.
The night was gloriously clear, and the moonlit forest was like fairyland. The windows of the chamber in which Windybank awaited the stroke of midnight faced towards the river, and the sheen of its broad waters was plainly visible. He sat without a light, and the silvery beams from without cast fantastic shadows on the oaken floor and the dark panelling of the low walls. The carved furniture stood distorted and grotesque. The woodwork creaked as it cooled from the heat of the day, and a mouse that scuttled sharply across the floor brought the watcher to his feet with an exclamation of alarm. His nerves were strung to respond to every sight and sound. Again and again he resolved that he would not sit up or have further dealings with the plotters. Loyalty and manliness and the fear of evil report pulled him one way; greed, ambition, desire for revenge, terror of Father Jerome and the thunders of the Church pulled him another. His mind was so torn with dissension and struggle that at last he gave up all endeavour to fix a path for himself. He sat blank and apathetic, conscious only that he was carrying out the order so menacingly given to him by Basil.
Midnight came, and he roused himself and stood up. He listened for signs of wakefulness in his household, but, within and without, the hour was soundless. He stole across the room to the window, then hesitated. Pressing his burning temples with his hands, he tried to come to some decision as to his conduct. Should he quietly summon a few of his men, bring in the plotters and arrest them? If he did this, surely it would atone for the dealings he had had with them? Honour whispered, "Get thee to thy slumbers, and go to-morrow to the admiral and make thy confession." He turned away from the lattice. A slight rattle attracted his attention. The blood rushed from his face, leaving him as cold as death. The dark form of Basil, silhouetted by the moonlight, was confronting him. One glare of angry reproach from the sinister eyes was enough. He opened the casement; Basil stepped in, and Father Jerome followed.
The two stood and eyed him severely. The priest laid his hand on his shoulder, and the ghost of a smile flickered across his pale countenance. Many a poor wretch had found that smile a herald of tragedy. Such it now appeared to the hapless owner of Dean Tower.
"'Tis past midnight, my son," said Jerome.
Windybank made no reply. The grip on his shoulder tightened with a startling suddenness. "'Tis past midnight, my son."
"Yes?--is it? I was coming, good father," faltered the victim.
"When thou art doing the work of a king--of the Holy Father--of God," whispered the priest, "thou shouldst put wings upon thy feet. Take heed, my son! We love thee" (the smile deepened); "we look to thee to do great things and earn great rewards. Let not our dearest hopes be disappointed."
Windybank glanced at Basil. There was death in the fanatic's eyes. "Forgive me," he murmured, and sank upon his knees.
Jerome raised him, and imprinted a cold kiss upon his forehead. "Sit," he said.
"The admiral hath held a council at Newnham to-day, and thou hast lost heart because a few dull wits have been pondering together," pursued the priest. "Dost thou know their plans?"
"Partly, father."
"A child might laugh at them! Our brave Basil here will reduce their watchmen to a jelly of terror before this moon wanes. When flies catch spiders, then these fools will catch us. Now hearken. If thou dost show the white feather again, thou diest; Basil hath sworn it. That is all that I have to say to thee by way of threat or reproof. Now this, by way of encouragement. We cannot fail. 'Tis the Church against heretics, the Holy Father against apostates, the mightiest king in Christendom against a vain and foolish woman. My plans are perfected. A vessel manned by stout hearts will be here, in the river, a month from to-day. Men who laugh at danger and have never known defeat will be aboard of her. They will land at my signal, and must find all things ready for the last blow. These miles of woodland will be ablaze; no guard, such as the admiral can set, will prevent us. I want thine aid. 'Tis an honour for thee to be linked with our holy cause; beware how thou dost carry the dignity. This house of thine must be hiding-place and headquarters for me. I shall come and go when I please, and, be assured, I shall time my movements so that none shall know of them. A safe asylum in the forest is necessary. I have chosen this. I command; thou dost obey. Have I made it plain to thee?"
Windybank's dry lips murmured "Yes."
"Thou hast an enemy?"
"I have."
"Basil hath set his mark upon him."
"I know it."
"If thou art faithful, thy rival dies. Now lead us to the chamber of which thou hast told us. Basil and I are weary, and would sleep. Come, thou shall wait upon us and make us secure."
The men in black slept at the Tower that night.
Chapter VIII.
MASTER WINDYBANK WALKS ABROAD.
A month came and went, and during that time the stir of apprehension died down in the forest. Men pursued their wonted occupations, by the river, in the greenwood and the mines, without let or hindrance. Night was as untroubled as the day; the dreaded men in black appeared no more. Wayfarer and forester forgot to scan bush and bracken for the deadly and cadaverous form of Basil. Simple, honest souls believed that the admiral's council at Newnham, and the measures of defence adopted thereat, had shown the emissaries of King Philip how impossible was their wild enterprise.
"Verily," said they, "the villains have gotten a fright, and are gone back to their rascally master."
Which opinion did credit to the clean-souled fellows who uttered it, and a glaring injustice to the cunning knaves who had caused such a fearful commotion amongst them. And all the while the plotters had secret harbourage at Dean Tower, coming and going by stealth and in the darkness, avoiding all men, playing no bogy tricks, but maturing their plans.
Andrew Windybank had lived the wretchedest month of his life. A mountain of care bowed him down, and fear, rage, jealousy, and wounded pride gnawed unceasingly at his heart. He knew that he was a suspected person: his neighbours shunned him; many of his servants and dependants, by sidelong looks and spying ways, showed that they mistrusted him. Within a week of the time when Father Jerome and his two lieutenants quartered themselves upon him, the young master of Dean Tower went about with pale face and bowed head, ashamed to meet the eyes of a passer-by; and all the time wild anger surged up in his heart, equally against those whose tool he was and against those who stepped aside with a shrug to let him pass. He suffered all the agonies that come upon weak natures that fall into temptation or succumb to evil influences. He dreaded the power of the Church of Rome; he shivered as he thought of the terrors of England's laws against traitors. He loved his country in a way, and he was proud of her; yet, having done nothing to merit the applause of his fellow-countrymen, he was maliciously envious of those who had risen to emergencies, or deliberately planned great deeds, and thus won themselves fame. He loved Mistress Dorothy, and he felt that, if she would only love him, he could be brave and noble; yet he hated the easy-going, simple-hearted Johnnie Morgan, who had made himself a popular idol, and was marked out by the gossips as the fittest and properest husband for pretty Mistress Dawe. Master Windybank could not help but admire the valiant admiral, and he remembered how he had flushed with pleasure when Drake had taken him by the hand on the occasion of their introduction. He hated and feared Father Jerome: but he was aiding his schemes, and endeavouring to frustrate those of the gallant sailor whom he honoured.
As the days wore on, unceasing fears began to torture him. Did any one know of his treason? One aged servitor only had been admitted into the secret of the unwelcome guests in the Tower, and the honest veteran had gone straightway upon his knees and besought his young master to cast them out. Of the Romish faith himself, he would have no hand in plots against his lawful Queen, and no truckling to the cruel bigot who sat upon the throne of Spain. But love of his master brought him into the snare, and made him an unwilling tool of the conspirators. Both fear and affection lead men to belie their better selves.
After a month of what was almost seclusion, Andrew Windybank determined to spend a morning by the river. He walked into Newnham, and made his way to the ferry to watch the tide race up the river. Men, horses, and dogs were coming across from Arlingham, as the verderers of the forest had a great hunt fixed for that very day. Windybank, as a verderer, should have remembered this, but weightier matters had driven it from his mind.
There was plenty of bustle at the ferry; men were shouting, horses were neighing, and hounds were baying. The townsfolk had come down to welcome their friends from the other side, but no Newnham man approached the master of Dean Tower. There was some whispering, some furtive glancing in his direction, and the Arlingham folk cut him as completely as did those of Newnham.
With his heart full of rage and malice, the young gentleman turned on his heel and strode off up the street. He held his head defiantly erect, and he gave scorn for scorn and shrug for shrug. From the open window of "Ye Whyte Beare" a jolly, rolling peal of laughter told him that young Morgan was within, and two boar-hounds tethered to the doorpost proclaimed that the Blakeney yeoman purposed hunting other game than the timid deer that day.
Higher up the street the angry man encountered a group of dark-haired, sallow-faced miners who were taking a holiday, and a hiss of "Papist! papist!" greeted him as he passed. His hand went to the hilt of his dagger, but the fellows flourished their oaken cudgels within an inch of his nose; so he contented himself with a counter hiss of "Insolent dogs!" and went on.
Resolved to face his foes, Master Andrew walked the whole length of the high street, although the road to Littledean branched off about halfway up. This meant that he must pass Captain Dawe's cottage, which dainty habitation he had not looked upon since the morning when his wooing had been interrupted by the coming of his wounded rival. The angry colour fled from his face, and his head sank lower and lower as he neared the place. The sound of Dorothy's voice in the garden unnerved him completely; shame swept over him like the swift river-tide that still roared in his ears, his chin fell on his breast, and a ghastly pallor whitened his cheeks. A sob broke from him as he bent low and hurried by. He did not dare to snatch even a glimpse of the scene beyond the hedge.
But he heard his name called in quick but quiet tones, "Master Windybank! Master Windybank!" His heart almost ceased beating. The shock of detection made him pause for an instant, and that brief space of time brought Dorothy into view. He would not run, but turned towards her, throbbing with the panting fears of a creature brought to bay. The wild light in his eyes was quenched when he saw the kindly glow in the blue orbs of the maiden. She put out her hand.
"Thou art almost a stranger," she said.
The youth's dry lips could frame no answer, nor did he take the proffered hand. Kindly concern, where he had expected contempt and reproach, completely unnerved him. Dorothy's hand was still held out, and her eyes grew kinder as he looked into them. He took the dainty fingers in his trembling hand and pressed them to his hot, dry lips. Dorothy had almost the sensation of a burn, and she winced. Windybank took the movement as a repulse, and threw the hand from him.
"Art thou going to torture me too?" he cried harshly. "Why do you all hate me so?"
"Hate!" echoed Dorothy. "La! Master Windybank."
"I am shunned like a leper," he went on. "Shall I get me into a sheet, carry a bell, and cry 'Unclean! unclean!' as I walk the roads?"
"But I do neither hate thee nor shun thee, else I had not called to thee. 'Tis thou dost make a hermit of thyself. And thou art ill and fevered," she added compassionately; "thou art wasted well-nigh to a shadow."
"I have no rest, no peace," he groaned. "I am scorned of my neighbours, spied upon, suspected, insulted. Do ye all think I have no heart to feel these things, no spirit to resent them? But I can return hate for hate, injury for injury. Let some men look to themselves!"
His tones were so fierce that Dorothy quailed. She recovered herself quickly.
"Come into the garden," she said.
"I cannot come where I am not welcome."
"I am asking thee."
"I shall not come."
"Then must I come to thee."
Suiting action to the words, the maiden hurried through the gate, and in a minute more Windybank was sitting beside her in the arbour.
Now Mistress Dorothy was a maiden very prone to act upon impulse. She would do a thing, and then, after accomplishment, consider the action, and ofttimes repent. She had never entertained any very great liking for Master Andrew, although her father had at one time made much of him and favoured him as an acceptable suitor for his daughter's hand. But the fact that the young gentleman was in serious disgrace, and spoken ill of by those who smoked their pipes and sipped their ale around the captain's table, softened her heart towards him. Ugly clouds of suspicion hung over him, and men said bitter things concerning him; but to Dorothy's mind the alleged treason seemed impossible. The accused man, she would argue, was a gentleman and a forester; he had sat at her father's board, he had spoken of love to her: such a one could not be a traitor; she would not condemn him unheard. But she had resolved to put him upon trial if opportunity offered. The opportunity had come, and, believing in his innocence, she seized upon it.
Dorothy went straight to her task without bush-beating. She told Master Andrew very plainly what men were saying about him, and then she asked him some blunt and awkward questions. Windybank was cunning; he saw that in Dorothy he had a friend and a ready champion. To answer her questions truthfully was to forfeit her good opinion and turn her liking into loathing. He determined to fence.
The maiden would have none of it. "I must have plain answer to plain question!" she cried.
So Master Windybank gave answers that appeared stamped with the mark of truth. He assumed the indignation of a wronged innocent, and spouted with some heat a torrent of lies and cunning half-truths.
It was all very cleverly done, especially the contrite confessions concerning interviews with Father Jerome and his brother-conspirators. He acknowledged that men had had some cause to suspect him. "But," exclaimed he, "a man should not be written down a criminal because some one asks him to commit a villainy. All of us are liable to temptation!"
"Truly spoken!" said Dorothy. "However, we must not parley with the tempter, but flee from him."
"That is not easy," answered Andrew, "for these men steal about like very wolves. They spring into one's path when least expected. It is impossible to avoid them."
Dorothy tapped her companion's sword. "Thou art armed," she said, "and so are they. What shouldst thou do when an avowed enemy of the Queen crosses thy path actually engaged in evil-doing?"
Windybank gulped. "Cut him down," he replied.
"Exactly!" Dorothy arose and held out her hand.
"I expect to hear that a gentleman and a forester has done his duty to his Queen, himself, and his friends."
The master of Dean Tower bowed, murmured some words of loyalty and devotion, and then took his leave. He went the longest way home, avoiding all frequented ways near which Basil might be lurking. Loyalty and treason, lodged in his heart, fought a dire fight, and, thanks to the vision of a pretty face, treason was rather badly wounded.
Chapter IX.
THE HUNT.
By the time he had reached home, Windybank was persuaded that treason would bring no grist to his mill. Weak-kneed and inclined to evil, he was yet an Englishman, and in his heart he felt that all the kings that ever ruled in Spain were too feeble a power to hold valiant little England in a conqueror's grip. The Jesuit's plot was feasible, and, as expounded by Father Jerome, promised a measure of success. The master of Dean Tower was prepared to acknowledge that the forest might be fired. What then? Would Philip beat England on the sea? The balance of numbers would be on his side; but what of the deeds of Drake and his brother-captains? They were men who laughed when the odds were against them. "No," said Andrew decisively, "the Spaniard is not yet born who can trounce that bullet-headed man of Devon. Philip's men can hardly land in England. If they do--!" The young man shrugged his shoulders expressively; there were bonny fighters for the shore as well as for the sea!
Such was the power of a pair of blue eyes, when the black ones were not at hand to counteract their witchery, that Windybank determined straightway to play the honest man that he had determined to become. He whistled for his dogs, called to his groom, got him upon a sturdy pony, and hurried away to the hunt. He was late, but he knew that the quarry was to be roused in the Abbot's Wood, a close belt of forest lying betwixt Littledean and Blakeney, so he made for the old, grass-grown Roman road that ran straight through the heart of the woodland, and, ere he had ridden two miles, he could discern horn and "halloo!" away to the right towards the Speech.[1] His hounds heard the welcome sounds, gave mouth in answer, and dashed off through the green, waving sea of bracken. And master and groom, their forester blood running like a stimulating wine through them, put spurs to their steeds and raced off on the heels of the dogs.
After very little riding, the rapidly swelling volume of sound told the two hunters that the chase was coming straight in their own direction, and hardly had they come to this conclusion when a fresh and fiercer baying from their dogs and a ripping and crashing in the undergrowth brought them face to face with the quarry--a magnificent ten-point stag. Confronted unexpectedly by these fresh foes, the noble creature came to a terrified halt, and, flanks heaving, nostrils quivering, stared at them with wide-open eyes. But a yelp from the nearest hound and a view "halloo!" from Windybank sent it off again like a bolt from a crossbow.
"Head him back to the main chase!" yelled Master Andrew, and he rode off at a dangerous pace through the trees to carry out his own instructions. Dogs and man obeyed his voice with a will, and the unfortunate stag went bounding from one danger into the jaws of a greater. Terrified by the shouts and bayings behind him, and sorely hampered by the trees and undergrowth, he burst wildly into a glade, hoping to make a quicker dash for safety, but found himself, instead, confronted by a crowd of hunters on horse and afoot. Effectually cornered, he turned to bay, and the first hound that approached was tossed a good dozen yards, landing with a thud and a howl right under the heels of Dorothy's pony. Snapping viciously out at the nearest obstacle, the brute bit the pony just above the fetlock, causing it to rear, spring forward, and throw its rider into the midst of the dogs and within reach of the stag's horns. A cry of alarm went up, and Windybank, who was easily the nearest man, had the opportunity of his life. He hesitated, and his rival, who had quitted the boar hunt when he found Dorothy riding after other game, sprang to the rescue in an instant. With his bare hands he threw the dogs aside and snatched up the unconscious girl just as the stag's antlers made the first savage rip at her riding-dress. The whole deed was done in the twinkling of an eye, and done single-handed. Morgan's quickness and cool daring had proved easily equal to the crisis, and loud cries of "Well done, Johnnie!" greeted the popular hero. For the nonce the quarry was left to the dogs, and Windybank, glancing round, saw that he was the only man still in the saddle; instinctively every other rider had sprung to the ground. No one appeared to notice him; so, conscious that his chance of regaining any share of popular esteem was gone, he swung his horse round and disappeared amidst the trees. His dogs were yelping with the rest of the pack, and not even his groom followed him. A feeling of hopeless loneliness crept over the young man's heart, and his head hung down, weighted with the bitterest thoughts of his life. His conscience was busy with accusing whispers--"Traitor! Coward! Fool!" The unspoken words burnt into his brain, and fired his dark face with the hues of a lurid sunset. He halted; no man could see him, and he listened to the clamour in the glade. He heard an exultant bay from one of his own hounds. The brute dared more than his master, and was taking a bold share in the events of the moment; and the vindictive master vowed to have the brave dog's life for outdoing him.
The spirit of mad hate was driving out the feeling of shame. He vowed with an awful oath that Morgan should share the hound's fate. All men were his enemies; why, then, should he spare them?
A hand of ice was laid on his hand, and he almost screamed with the sudden shock and surprise; he had heard no footstep. He raised his head, to find the stern, set face of Basil confronting him.
"What art thou doing here?" he cried hoarsely.
"Looking after thee."
"Begone, then; I'll not be dogged," exclaimed Windybank wildly. "If these men see us, our dooms are sealed."
"Thine was almost sealed," said Basil curtly. "'Twas in thine heart to play us false. Hadst thou held out the hand of friendship to yonder herd of heretics, thou wouldst have found me to-night both thy judge and executioner. Come, the time is ripe for action. I spare thee because I need thee; but beware!"
Basil took the pony by the bridle and turned its head towards Dean Tower. "Father Jerome awaits thee," he said, "and thy life hangs in the balance. Go!"
And Windybank went.
[1] The ancient courthouse of the foresters; it still exists.
Chapter X.
MASTER WINDYBANK REBELS.
Andrew Windybank slunk away through the forest homewards. He had set out to play the man; he sidled in through his own gateway like a whipped puppy. Not once during his ride did he look back, and he neither hurried nor loitered; the former he would not, and the latter he dared not do, for he felt that Basil was watching him. Never for an instant did he lose the consciousness that the beady, black eyes were upon him. He felt them like two hot points in the middle of his back; they burned and bored, and the flesh seemed to shrink away from them beneath the taut skin.
For some time the sounds of the hunt came to his ears, but he heeded them not. "I am out of the hunt in all ways," he said bitterly. "Bugle-calls are not for me."
There is no more pitiable object than a man suffering under mental and moral defeat. He has lost faith in himself. He has tried, he has failed; and he usually throws his defeat in the face of Providence, accusing the Almighty of desertion. Windybank did so. Desperate with anger and humiliation, he went to his own private sanctum. Father Jerome and Basil were already there, awaiting him. Windybank could not repress a start of surprise when he found that the ex-monk had outstripped him. He had hoped for a few minutes of quiet thought before facing Jerome. A quick wave of anger swept over him when he realized how closely he was "shadowed." His footsteps dogged if he went abroad; his privacy was broken, without so much as a "by your leave," if he stayed at home; he was treated as a puppet, a cat's-paw, a thing that must move only according to the will of another. A flash of light showed him the utter depth of his degradation; and the two basilisks that sat staring and motionless before him were the instruments that had accomplished his undoing. A wild yearning for freedom and vengeance arose in his heart.
"We have been waiting for thee since early morn, my son," said Jerome, breaking the silence. The tone of the speaker's voice was cold, hard, and threatening. The menace in it stung Windybank into rebellion.
"And why should ye not wait?" he cried. "Who, in God's name, are ye to establish yourselves unbidden in my house, dog my steps, threaten me, ruin me with my friends and neighbours, and treat me as though I were a child without will, aims, or desires of mine own? Ye have tarried for me; tarry on until doomsday. Henceforth I'll be master of myself!" Furious with passion, Master Andrew turned to the door.
The effect of this outburst was electric. Jerome sat as one stupefied, and for a bare instant Basil gazed as stonily as he; but he recovered in time to prevent the young man's departure. The yellow-faced fanatic was as quick-handed as he was quick-witted. Windybank had lifted the latch, and his fingers were on the door pulling it open. Basil drew his dagger, held it, poised, by the blade for a moment, then cast it with great force and precision. Master Andrew felt a hot pain in his hand, tried to pluck it back to his body, and failed; it was pinned fast to the door. Basil came forward, drew out the dagger, and led his host to the feet of Father Jerome.
"Thou art drunk," he said meaningly--"drunk with the poison of a wench's flattery. Down on thy knees and crave forgiveness!"
But the master of Dean Tower was thoroughly aroused, and was not to be cowed by a word. He threw Basil from him, and, wounded and bleeding though his hand was, he contrived to draw his sword.
"I'll kneel for forgiveness to no man living!" he cried. "Get ye from my house, or I will drive ye forth!"
Jerome had recovered from his astonishment; he rose up and laid his hand gently on the young man's shoulder. "Thou art beside thyself for the nonce, my son. Let us talk calmly. A host does not draw sword on his guests."
The words were uttered in a smooth, purring tone, and Andrew lowered his hand. He was glad to do it, for it throbbed with pain, and the blood was falling in a quick drip to the floor. His head was reeling, and he spoke stutteringly.
"Ye are not guests of mine; ye are intruders," he cried.
Jerome tried to press him into a chair, but he resisted. "Hands off, father! I can stand."
The Spaniard made no further attempt to coerce the maddened young gentleman, but he took a kerchief from his doublet and carefully bound up the wounded limb.
"A drop of wine, son Basil, for our friend," he said.
Basil went to a cabinet, but Windybank cried out,--
"Touch nothing of mine, thou devil's cub! Dost think I would drink ought from thy hands! When wilt thou be gone, as I have bidden thee? If thou dost not quit, I will run thee through."
Jerome saw that the presence of Basil was a continual irritant to the desperate man, so he himself ordered his satellite to withdraw. Basil obeyed with no very good grace, and the look that Windybank received boded ill. Jerome now placed his victim in a cosy chair, threw open the casement that the fresh breeze from the woods might enter, and brought the glass of wine he had ordered. Master Andrew drank it, then lay back with closed eyes, his brain busy with tumultuous thought. The Spaniard sat and watched him as a wolf might watch a slumbering dog; his brain was as busy as that of the other. Was his plan doomed to failure at the last moment? If the master of Dean Tower failed him at so critical a juncture, he could not see how to proceed. More than ever did the conspirators require a place of refuge, not only for themselves, but for others whom Jerome was daily expecting.
Father Jerome got up and quietly left the room, proceeding to an ante-chamber where he knew Basil was lurking.
"Well?" asked the latter when he saw his chief.
"Thou hast been too harsh and hasty, my son. The meanest man will turn to bay if his dignity is wounded too sorely. We have found Master Windybank weak and pliable, and we have been too contemptuous of his manhood. He hath a little, and that last blow of thine has aroused it."
Basil fell on his knees in contrition. "Forgive me!" he murmured.
Jerome raised him up and gave him a perfunctory kiss on the forehead.
"We can forgive faults that arise from excess of zeal," he replied, "and we must have patience with the weak-kneed; a time will come when we shall be able to visit their sins upon them. At present we must play the loving friend; we can be the merciless judge at the opportune moment. Get thee to Gatcombe, my son. Watch the admiral well, and send the messenger thou wottest of down to Chepstow to learn if there be any tidings of our friends from Ireland. The time for action is fully come; the foresters are lulled again to security; we must strike as speedily as possible. I shall expect thee at midnight to-morrow. Meantime I will bring back our host to a sense of his duty and religion."
Basil bent one knee to receive his superior's blessing. "Benedicite!" murmured Jerome.
His subordinate seized his hand and pressed it to his lips. "I am forgiven, father?" he asked.
"Forgiven and blessed," answered Jerome. "Go! and the Holy Virgin watch over thee."
Basil pulled his hood over his face, opened a small oak door whose hinges had been generously oiled, and disappeared amongst the trees. Jerome went back to Windybank.
Chapter XI.
DARKNESS AND THE RIVER.
The hunt and its incidents were three days old.
Johnnie Morgan had been to Newnham, and had spent a whole afternoon in Dorothy's company. Not once had she snubbed him or even contradicted him. Johnnie was home again, quietly happy. There was a battle of wit and song fixed for the night at the local tavern; several "jolly dogs" had waylaid the young farmer and tried to drag him off for an evening's revelry, but he would have none of it. The sun was going down over the hills, and Johnnie sat in his parlour and watched it. His chair was tilted back against the heavy table, and his feet were on the window-ledge half shrouded in flowers. He stared at the rosy sky and dreamed dreams of the same colour.
Johnnie heard quick footsteps coming up to the porch, and immediately afterwards there was a lusty banging at the door.
"Plague take 'em!" exclaimed the contemplative youth; "I'll not go."
A little, dark-haired maiden, who, with her mother, formed the whole of the farmer's domestic establishment, came into the room.
"The admiral's man would speak with you, master," she said.
Johnnie's feet were on the floor in an instant. "Show him in," he cried.
A weather-beaten Devon man, sailor to his finger-tips, rolled into the room. The two men gripped hands.
"At last?" asked Johnnie in a low tone.
"At last!" was the reply. "Gatcombe jetty at nightfall, and well armed."
"I'll be there."
Without further words the messenger turned about and went elsewhere on his errand. Morgan at once got out his sword, put on a thick leathern doublet and boots reaching to his thighs. Then, well knowing that he might be setting out on an all-night expedition, he proceeded to eat a hasty but hearty supper.
At the appointed time he stood with about a dozen others on the river-bank. The tide was about at half-flow and running strongly; moreover, a breeze was coming up behind it from the south-west. There was no moon, clouds were packing, and there was every sign of a pitch-dark night. The admiral's roomy boat, with its mast stepped and sail ready for hoisting, bobbed up and down on the water. Drake himself was there to receive his men.
"A rare night on the river for fish poachers, smugglers, and other nefarious rascals," said he.
"True, admiral," answered a Gatcombe pilot; "and I trow we shall find it trying work looking for black men on a black night."
"Well spoken, master pilot; but if thou canst keep our lives free of danger from shoal and sandbank, we'll e'en try to do the rest."
"I'll warrant ye safe passage anywhere 'twixt Chepstow and Gloucester, Sir Francis."
"I ask no more.--Now, gentlemen, aboard!"
In silence the chosen band seated themselves. "Take the tiller, pilot; I myself will attend to the sail. Do thou, Master Morgan, seat thyself in the bow and maintain a sharp lookout; thine eyes are younger than mine, and more used to the lights of the river." The anchor was lifted in, and immediately the boat swung round into the path of the racing waters. "Make for the other side," ordered Drake, "and lay to in the backwater under the bank."
A few deft strokes of the oars carried the boat into the rush of the tide; for an instant it hung wavering, and then shot off like an arrow up and across the roaring river. Then followed a few minutes of intense excitement. The little craft rocked and swayed, and rose and fell, tossed like a cork on the turbid waters. Morgan could scarcely see a hand's-breadth before him. The rudder creaked as the pilot moved it to and fro, and only his voice was heard as, very softly, he ordered one oarsman after another to pull or back-water in order to hold the course safely between the shallows and avoid the shifting sands, whose presence, in the darkness, no eye could descry. Morgan was kneeling in the bow, a stout pole in his hands; only once was he called upon to use it, when the nose of the boat went crunching along the slope of a sandbank for a few yards. At length came the welcome order, "Easy all!" A minute later the boat was riding on an even keel under the bank, rising and falling in rhythm with the suck and lap of the water as it devoured the soft, red-brown walls that shut it in. The heads of the men were on a level with the strip of turf that formed the land's margin. Fifty yards back was the outer edge of a belt of dark wood that covered the flat lands and swept up the sides of the hills that lay off ten or twelve miles to the east. Against such a background nothing would be visible in the darkness. Across on the Gatcombe side were the steep sandstone cliffs, storm-washed and clean, and topped with primeval forest.
"Master Morgan," said Drake, "how far out in the stream must we lie in order that thou mayest distinguish the sail or hull of a ten-ton craft against the cliff face?"
"I can do it from here, Sir Francis. The channel is about mid-stream; and now that mine eyes are got accustomed to the dull tinge of the water, I can see the fleck and scum on the farther sand-ridge."
"Good! thou art our watch."
The admiral turned to the rest of his party. "Gentlemen," said he, "in one sense we work in the dark to-night; our foes have willed it so. Ye have come out on this errand at my bidding, asking no questions, and so, in a way, ye are groping in a double darkness. 'Tis not my way to have men follow me blindly if I can open their eyes. I want those at my back to see; by so doing they will strike the surer. Now, tidings have reached me that those Spanish rascals whom ye wot of are about to bring their plot to a head. Tomorrow night they hope to see the forest in flames." The men stirred uneasily; Drake went on: "We have had a long drought, and master-pilot will tell ye that there are strong winds coming up from the sou'-west. For to-night and to-morrow they may be dry; after that we may expect rain. Some of ye will know the Luath that trades between Gloucester and Waterford in Ireland. The Irish are not loyal to our Queen--that ye also know. The Luath came up to Chepstow on the tide this morning, and no one, unless in the secret of these Spanish villains, would dream that she carried ought but honest cargo. Her hull, gentlemen, hides four rascal priests and other desperate fellows to the full total of half a score, and much of her merchandise is tar, oils and resin, and bales of tow. The boat should wait off Chepstow for the tide that runs to-morrow forenoon before attempting the dangerous run onwards to Gloucester. She really leaves to-night. Just above Westbury she hath planned an anchorage, and there Master Windybank of Dean Tower--whom, God helping me, I will hang over his own gateway before another sunset--will meet them with pack-horses wherewith to convey the combustibles to their appointed places. 'Tis our business to capture the Luath. The good knight Sir Walter Raleigh and the gallant Mayor of Newnham will see to Master Windybank and the black-garbed villains that consort with him. That is our mission; it remains for us to bring about a sure accomplishment."
"'Tis as good as done, admiral," murmured the men.
"There'll be a little tough fighting first," was the quiet reply. "Capture means death to these fellows. They are brave, and will prefer to die fighting."
The river still rose; the tide was nearing full flood, and the wind steadily increased. Soon there was water of a navigable depth above every sandbank, and there was no longer a swirl to indicate a shallow. Morgan had seen nothing; the men were getting cramped and impatient. There was now no need for the Luath to pick her way; she might race up anywhere between the wide banks: her chances of detection were greatly lessened.
The pilot spoke. "Saving your presence, admiral, but this Irish skipper is a deep dog. He should have passed ere now if he intends to do his business at Westbury and then make Gloucester on this tide. He suspects us."
"How so, pilot?"
"He hath not ventured to navigate the usual channels, which could be watched."
"He'll have no pilot; don't forget that."
"True; nevertheless he is behaving right cunningly."
"I never expected him to behave foolishly."
"'Sh!" Morgan's voice broke in. There was tense silence in a moment. All eyes were staring across the river. "Row out!" cried Johnnie; "they won't hear us in this wind."
After about a dozen full strokes the command came from the bow, "Cease rowing and keep her steady a moment!"
Another palpitating wait; then an excited cry from more than one voice, "There she goes!" And the Luath, every thread of her brown sail taut, swept by like a greyhound, wind and wave hurrying her upstream.
Round swung the admiral's boat, up went the sail, and in a moment she was bowling along in the wake of the foe. "Put your backs into it, lads," cried Drake; "we must have her before she gets too far up the river, else will the longshore rascals get warning."
The stout foresters and fishers needed no incentive; they were rowing as well as ever Jason's Argonauts rowed, and a greater than Jason was directing them.
The yellow waters rushed and swirled and bubbled; objects drifting up on the tide were left hopelessly behind. But the stout little Irish boat had got under good headway, and for a while she kept it, looming before them a blacker patch in a black night.
Chapter XII.
SNARING A FLOCK OF NIGHT RAVENS.
At about the hour when Johnnie Morgan stepped out over his threshold to go down to the admiral at Gatcombe, Andrew Windybank stole like a thief from the Tower and went through by-paths towards Westbury-on-Severn, a fishing hamlet that lay a little farther up-stream than Newnham. Not a single man of all his servants and retainers went with him. He was clad in helmet and cuirass, and armed with sword and poniard. Although he walked stealthily, he walked firmly. Impelled by superstitious fears, avarice, and desire for revenge, he had finally thrown himself whole-heartedly into the Spanish plot. He had found it impossible to hold out against Jerome and Basil, for, had he withstood them, they would have killed him without mercy. Therefore, being implicated hopelessly with them and their schemes, he determined, wisely, to use no half-measures and thus court defeat and disaster, but to strive to his uttermost for the success of their plans, treasonable and dishonourable though he knew them to be. "May as well be hanged for a royal stag as for lesser game," said Master Windybank; and as he said it he felt his neck grow uncomfortable. He plucked at his doublet, found it quite loose, swore at himself for an imaginative fool, and hurried on his way.
The wood was almost passed; the trees were thin, and the steep of the hill was merging into the level of the plain. Master Andrew could hear the faint roar of the running tide. Nowhere along the river could a light be seen. From wood to wood across the wide waterway all was a black hollow, not even the yellow of the half-covered sands showing a tinge of colour through the thick darkness. "A mirky night for a mirky deed," whispered the young man. "Father Jerome hath chosen well." He resumed his walk, turning north towards the cliff at Westbury. The darkness and the sense of security had heightened his courage; he stepped out boldly and without hesitation. All at once he was conscious that some one was near him. Hardly had he realized this presence when a hand was laid in a familiar fashion on his arm. "Thy feet are swift in the good cause," said a voice; "thus do men step to victory!"
Basil! Windybank felt uncomfortable at once. Had the fellow been dogging his steps from the Tower? He moved more stealthily than the night itself, and one never felt free of his presence.
The two walked on side by side, never exchanging another word; indeed Windybank made no reply to Basil's remark. They came out on the river-side path that ran from Newnham to Westbury around the great horseshoe sweep of the river. The shallow wavelets of the advancing tide were already lapping at the soft, red bank on their right. On their left was a ditch; behind that, an embankment topped by a tall hedge; beyond that, orchards and fields stretching away to forest and hill. The two conspirators crept along in the shadow of the hedge. Half a mile farther on was the rendezvous. A faint light coming from the foam-topped water made the blackness near its margin seem less intense, and presently Windybank saw three figures ahead of him silhouetted against the stretch of river. He plucked Basil by the sleeve, and the fanatic came to a dead stop instantly.
"Friends or foes?" whispered the young forester.
"No foe would walk so openly to our meeting-place," replied the other, "and no friend should risk discovery so stupidly. I'll hurry after them and teach them discretion."
The ex-monk crouched down and ran almost on all fours like a dog. The pace at which he went in so strained a position opened Windybank's eyes. "The fellow's more beast than man," he thought, "and his muscular strength is marvellous." He went on to the appointed place alone and slowly, seeing nothing of Basil or the three others until he got there.
About a dozen men were assembled, and Windybank gathered from their whispers that they were from the northern part of the forest or from beyond the Wye; neither Father Jerome nor his other lieutenant, John, was present. Windybank stretched himself on the grass just above the water, being determined to say nothing to any man. He fell to contemplating the tall spire of Westbury Church, which stood out like a blurred finger in the darkness. Meanwhile the tide ran strongly.
A boat came across from the eastern side of the river. Father Jerome and five men stepped out, and the boat was tied up under the bank. The Jesuit asked for "Master Windybank," and Andrew stood up. "Your leader, friends, if it comes to fighting," said Jerome quietly. Windybank bowed; he had not anticipated such an honour, and he certainly did not want it; there was too much danger about it.
"Where is John?"
Basil answered. "Gone to meet the company that rides from Gloucester."
Nearly half an hour went by, a time of dead silence and anxious watching. Some of the less eager conspirators began to feel the demoralizing effects of the long wait; their courage began to ebb. Andrew Windybank had time to reflect, and he wished himself well out of the whole business. Here and there a man sighed or fidgeted in the darkness. Basil was quick to notice the signs, and equally quick to combat them. He whispered words of hope and promise, and stimulated the nagging ones to fresh zeal.
A muffled sound of hoofs--the men from Gloucester! Windybank noted with some degree of satisfaction that they ware well armed and well mounted. In the darkness he counted nearly a score of men. A few were "riff-raff;" some, like himself, were perhaps forced; but the majority seemed to be of some substance and courage. Prospects were looking brighter. Master Andrew ventured to ask Basil a question. "What of the Irish ship?"
"The Luath will not fail us; she is almost due."
"It is possible that she may pass the cliff in the darkness," put in a bystander. "Mine eyes are good, but I cannot see mid-stream, and a boat that carries no lights may easily slip by unseeing and unseen."
"That is our greatest risk, my son," admitted Basil. "But if the Luath is to escape other prying eyes, we must take the chance against ourselves. One thing, we know when and where to expect her, and the captain will steer inshore after passing Newnham, because of the deeper channel being this side. I don't think we shall miss her."
Father Jerome utilized the minutes in slipping from man to man and giving each a fixed duty to perform the moment the Luath should come to anchor under the bank. He seemed to have forgotten nothing; ropes were ready for the tying up of the vessel and the hauling ashore of the cargo in cradles that the skipper would have aboard with him. The horses from the city were designed for duty as pack-horses, by means of which combustibles would be conveyed to divers parts of the forest and hidden whilst the darkness lasted. Finally, the boat that had brought Father Jerome and the contingent from the Arlingham side would drift down-stream on the ebb with materials for giving the fire a good start round Awre and Blakeney.
"Ha!"--the exclamation came in a strained whisper from a dozen throats. A black shape loomed up out of the darkness, and was recognized by more than one for the Luath. The ship swung towards the cliff, and the men stood ready to drop the anchor. There was a soft call of "Ahoy!"
"Ahoy!" answered Basil. In an instant every conspirator was alert and afoot. Father Jerome rubbed his hands with undisguised glee, and Andrew Windybank felt a great weight drop from his heart. He had now no doubt of success for the night's venture. The Luath was safe and to time, and many hours of darkness were yet before them. He had not expected that things would go so smoothly. He saw visions of satisfied revenge dancing before him like "Jack-o'-lanthorns." His spirits were of that sort that are easily elated or depressed. Now they bounded up like a liberated balloon.
But another black shape crept up-stream--a small black shape. And from this came, not a faint call, but a rousing shout of:--
"St. George and the Heart of Oak!"
Chapter XIII.
A DOUBLE FIGHT.
The fierce, challenging shout from the river seemed to split the thick darkness as a wedge might split a tree. For a few seconds only was there a following silence, in which the conspirators stood rooted in astonishment; then from the very hedge that fringed the river-path came another cry, "The Dragon and the Lion!" The veriest fool that hung round Father Jerome knew that these cries could be naught but answering signals. They were trapped. The rushing river lay before them, a line of enemies stood behind, and the darkness was such that no man could tell friend from foe at the distance of a dozen paces.
The anchor of the Luath dropped to the deck again with a dull clang. Hands went to the freeing of the sails, and the tiller swung round to bring the vessel out of the backwater beneath the cliff into the full run of the tideway.
"Shoot!" ordered a rough voice (the admiral's) from the boat. A shower of arrows whistled over the heads of the group on land, and stuck, quivering, into ship or sailor. This sign of perfect agreement between the forces at the rear and on the river decided some of the plotters. The admiral evidently had known all, and was prepared with a perfect counterplot. The only chance of safety lay in flight--and they fled.
But Father Jerome was not beaten. His weapon was out, and Basil's and John's followed immediately.
"We fight for it, my sons," he cried. "The ship can hold her own and help us too; there are fifty bold fellows aboard her." His voice rang out clearly and resolutely, and the captain of the Luath responded. "'Tis but a boat-load to beat off," he said.
But Francis Drake led the boat-load. Under cover of the darkness and the flight of arrows from the bank he had brought his boat under the lee of the Irish vessel, and, closely followed by Johnnie Morgan, was swarming up her side. A stirring shout of "Strike for the Queen, my lads!" told Raleigh that the admiral was aboard. The next moment Sir Walter, Captain Dawe, and a dozen bold fellows from Newnham swarmed through the hedge and down the bank, and dashed upon Jerome and his men.
"Cut them down, lads!" cried Raleigh. "Every one is a priest of Spain or a traitor; don't spare the vermin!"
The din and clamour ashore and afloat--the cries, curses, clash of weapons, and groans of the wounded--turned midnight and darkness into an hour of pandemonium. The shore fight was short, for, though the three chief conspirators and Windybank fought desperately enough, the rank and file seemed more anxious to save their skins than do aught else. They dared not ask for quarter after Raleigh's order--'twas fight to the death, or fly. The men from Gloucester moved at once to their horses, and some of them managed to spring into the saddle and get off in the darkness. The rough foresters were poorly armed and ill prepared for fighting; for the most part those who stood were cut down like sheep, and paid the full penalty of their treason. Basil endeavoured to single out Raleigh, and Father Jerome did the same; but one cloaked man is very like another at midnight, and there were tall fellows amongst the Newnham lads that could stand shoulder to shoulder with the famous knight. Windybank hoped to get a thrust at Morgan; and now that his blood was up, and he had resolved to sell his life dearly, he was chagrined to find no sign of the hated foe. He did not suspect that Johnnie was with the admiral on the river.
Meanwhile there was a fiercer struggle on the Luath. The crew and the men stowed in hiding beneath the hatches were either Irish or Spanish, all friends of the Pope and King Philip, and inveterate foes of England's Queen and faith. Moreover, they were well armed and could fight stoutly. The ship's decks were soon slippery with blood and cumbered with dead and wounded. Twice the admiral was beaten back to the bulwarks and almost over the side. His force was hardly great enough for the task that confronted it; indeed, the astute seaman had, for once, underestimated both the numbers and the courage of his foe. He cheered his little company with voice and example.
"Foot to foot with me, lads!" he cried. "The honour of England is at stake. Shall Dons and Irish beat us on our own rivers? Well thrust, Master Morgan! Now, a rush together, boys! Ha! they give; the dogs give!"
So, under the pall of night on the swirling waters, the fight went on. Now the gallant captain of the Luath was exultant, the next moment the admiral had the advantage; backwards and forwards swung the balance of conflict. A loud "hurrah!" from the shore, a great shout of "victory," cries of "Drive them into the river!" showed how matters had gone between Raleigh and Father Jerome. The news heartened the admiral and demoralized the conspirators on the ship. The vessel itself, rocking to and fro, refusing to obey the helmsman, lurched from the quiet backwater into the swirl of the racing current. She swung half round, pitched and rolled dangerously, and then went up-stream like a drunken thing, swaying, turning, threatening to rush for cliff or sandbank, and endangering the life of every soul on board. The valiant skipper saw and felt the imminent peril, and, sailor-like, sprang himself to the helm and headed the staunch little ship along the safe channel. Then he gave her over to the helmsman again with some whispered instructions, and sprang back into the fight that had not slackened because of the chances of shipwreck. But the sense of doubled danger soon told its tale. The Spanish allies, strangers to the river, lost their heads, unnerved by the blackness of the night and the apparently ungoverned course along the tide. Raleigh and his victorious men were running along the bank and cheering the admiral. The captain of the Luath took a desperate chance. He blew a call on a whistle that hung on his neck. It was a signal to the helmsman, who turned the nose of the ship across stream to the eastern shore. Diagonally the vessel steered to destruction; she just cleared the sand-ridge in the centre of the river, and then went crash into the bank.
"Save yourselves," cried the skipper, and those of his men who could jumped into the waters and struggled to land. "I fight to the last," cried the gallant Irishman, when those who cared to run for life had had their chance; and the braver ones amongst his men came in a ring about him, and fought on until struck down. Drake offered them quarter, but they proudly refused it. "No rope for my neck!" cried the captain; and his men cheered his resolve, and died fighting beside him.
Chapter XIV.
WHAT HAPPENED IN WESTBURY STEEPLE.
The battle was over, and there remained but the counting of the cost. The admiral had lost a third of his force, who lay dead on the deck, or on the shifting sands beneath the yellow tide. There was hardly a man that had not received a wound. Johnnie Morgan had gone down under the last wild-cat spring of the Irish captain.
"We must have a light," cried Drake; "this vessel is a firebrand. Some of you fetch up combustibles from below."
The ship was stuck fast into the bank, the tide pounding her viciously as she lay. In a short while a fire was roaring on the Arlingham bank, and by its glare the deck was cleared of its ghastly burden, and the wounded attended to. Hallooing across the river, Drake ordered those on the other side to secure boats from somewhere, and come across stream to render him assistance. Messengers went off to the neighbouring farms to bring carts and mattresses and stuff for bandaging; for the tale of wounded, friend and foe, was a long one. Willing hands and legs went to work, but it was bright morning ere much assistance arrived. Johnnie Morgan was not seriously wounded. A sword-cut on the head had stunned him for a while, and now laid him, sick, dizzy, and bleeding, on the bank; but he was able to tell the admiral that he felt nothing but a "plaguy bad headache."
We will leave him cooling in the dewy morning, and see what has become of Master Windybank and some of those associated with him. The master of Dean Tower, deeming his treachery well known, and not reckoning upon any chance of life if he fell into the admiral's hands, rose to the height of a desperate occasion, and fought in so resolute a fashion that he was not outdone by the tigerish Basil or the cold-blooded Jerome. The arch-plotter, who kept by the side of his untrustworthy recruit, was astonished at the reckless valour he displayed. Truth to tell, Jerome was half inclined to believe that Windybank had played a double part, and was responsible for the admiral's knowledge of the plot for unlading the Luath.
Entertaining such a notion, he was watching Master Andrew closely; and had he detected any signs of half-heartedness, or any movement towards escape, he would have run the young man through the body without hesitation. But the suspected one proved, for the nonce, a leader that would have led stouter-hearted fellows to victory; and Father Jerome, seeing the fight was hopeless, determined to give Windybank a chance of further life and usefulness in the Spanish cause. He slowly gave way in the direction of the river, and whispered his companion to do likewise.
"Skin whole?" he asked.
"Ay," panted Andrew.
"Fall into the river as though badly wounded, and try to save thyself. I shall do the same. Leave Basil and John to fight this out."
A moment later Windybank toppled backwards into the stream. He was a good swimmer, else had the Jesuit's advice availed him nothing, and he rose to the surface and turned over on to his breast like a porpoise. He fixed his sword between his teeth, and left himself to the rush of the tide, putting in a few strokes now and then in order to keep a proper course. A short time sufficed to put him out of the area of actual conflict, and he rested himself for a moment to consider what was best for him to do. He did not suppose that his foes would put an escape to his credit, for his voice had been heard loudly enough in the fight until the waters had closed above him. He determined to essay the crossing of the river, as giving him the better chance of a run for liberty, but he found the task beyond him; the fighting had fatigued him, and the current ran like a mill-race. For the present, at any rate, he must remain on his own side of the Severn. He swam a little farther up-stream, then made for a place where the bank was low, and scrambled out. For a while he waited to see whether Father Jerome had followed him. Getting no signs of his leader, he turned to the pressing question of his own immediate safety. He quickly decided not to seek any hiding-place in the forest; the river offered a better channel for escape. If he could secrete himself for a while, a chance would offer itself of running down on the tide after nightfall. It would not be difficult to find a boat, and the Welsh coast of the estuary should afford him a safe asylum until he could make fuller plans concerning his future. The voyage would be a perilous one, but he saw no other chance of escaping capture and death.
The gray cottages of Westbury were before him, backed by the church and its tall spire. A thought flashed across his mind like an inspiration: his riverside hiding-place was found! The spire was isolated from the church, and was entirely of wood, save for a stone stump. Great beams crossed and recrossed one another, in an ever-narrowing pyramid, for about two hundred feet. Up in the dimness and final darkness near the apex was security for any man.
Windybank stole across the river meadow to the nearest house. The door stood open and the place was empty. The neighbouring house was in like condition, and a quick survey told him that the fisher-folk, hearing sounds of the fight, had gone down to learn what strange business was adoing at midnight. Master Andrew was deficient neither in caution nor in cunning. He acted promptly. A pantry was visited, and a loaf of bread abstracted. He slipped from the house and passed through the orchard. He stuffed his pockets with half-ripe apples; they would help to quench his thirst, and he could hope for no water in his lofty place of concealment.
He got to the churchyard wicket, passed through, floundered over the melancholy mounds that strewed God's acre, and reached the square, stone stump upon which the wooden spire was reared, and in which hung the bells. The door was on the latch, the lower part of the belfry being used as a storehouse for odds and ends of stone, wood, and rope belonging to the church itself. Windybank knew his bearings fairly well. He found the staircase, and began to wend upwards to the bell-chamber. About twenty feet up he felt a rush of cool, river air, and he knew that he had passed the first lattice. A little later, and he was on the belfry floor, his hands feeling the chill, smooth surface of the largest bell. Aching with fatigue and excitement, he sat down. He did not propose to attempt the perilous climb upwards in the darkness, and daylight could not be far off. Hunger sent in its claims; he broke the loaf, and munched a couple of sour apples. The food refreshed him, and he felt he could wait patiently for the dawn.
Day came, and with it a buzz of excitement in the village. Windybank ventured to peep through the topmost lattice and scan the groups of excited gossips. Then he looked aloft through the great network of beams and rafters. He was tired, and his brain swam inside his head. The apex of the spire looked fearfully high and dark, and the brown, cobwebbed maze of woodwork bewildered him. The latch below clicked; some one was in the lower tower. The great bell began to swing; the sexton was ringing an alarm. Seized by a sudden fright, Windybank clambered by a bell-wheel to the first huge beam. He got his fingers on it and swung his body across. He gained the next, and the next; he was twenty feet above the floor of the bell-chamber. The boom of the bell was deafening. He paused for breath, and then hurried on his upward way, slipping sometimes, but never falling.
Suddenly the bell stopped; a deep hum of sound spun and echoed in the narrowing cone where Windybank was giddily clinging. He had paused again to recover breath and stability. Looking down, he saw a head rising from the tower steps into the bell-chamber; the sexton had come up to readjust the rope. The fugitive's guilty conscience put another meaning upon his act; he felt sure that signs of his presence had been noted, and that the fellow had come up to search for him. A little way above him was darkness and security. He turned quickly to make a last noiseless dash, but he missed his grip and his footing. For a moment he hung, while his heart stood still. Then he fell with sickening thud and crash from beam to beam. The startled sexton looked up and cried out; and the traitor's body toppled in its last wild spin, and fell at his feet. He lifted it up. The face was beaten almost out of recognition, and the neck was broken.
The receding tide left Father Jerome's body on the sands. He delayed his plunge into the river a moment too long, and a thrust from Raleigh's sword speeded him into the yellow waters. John was found on the bank, dead likewise. Basil's body was searched for in vain. He was accounted as dead, for men protested stoutly that they had wounded him more than once. But a scotched viper does not always die. Gatcombe men were destined to prove the truth of that.
Chapter XV.
A LETTER FROM COURT.
Affairs in the forest had settled down; "excursions and alarums" were no longer the order of the day and the dread of the night. Wounded men were healed of the hurts gotten in the fray with the conspirators, and their whole-skinned neighbours had ceased to ask them how they did and envy them the marks of patriotic valour that they carried on their bodies. The dead were buried, and the tears of wives, mothers, and sisters were dried, and sad memories--when they came--called up only a sigh of resignation: "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away!" They humbly thanked the Lord that He had given their men honourable passage into the next world.
The admiral was no longer at Gatcombe, but had gone to London, and thence to Plymouth. Raleigh had gone to London with him, and in London had he stayed. After the solitude of the forest, the gaiety of the court attracted him strongly; and, as her most gracious Majesty was disposed to smile upon him, he had said to Drake, "The sun shines, Frank; beshrew me if I stray out of the circle of its warm rays." To which the seaman replied, "God forgive thee, Wat, for dancing so much after a woman's heels. The sea--as I know full well--can be treacherous, but I serve a less fickle mistress than thou."
Raleigh laughed lightly, kissed the storm-roughened cheek of his friend, and bade him God-speed. "What would our royal mistress say if she heard thee call her 'fickle'?" he whispered.
"I am not fool enough, Wat, to speak such words in her hearing. But have a care--courts are slippery places in which to walk. An honest man is safer on a ship's deck during a hurricane than on a palace floor even when the royal sun is shining. Have a care of thyself, dear heart, if only for the sake of us rough sea-dogs of Devon that love thee."
Whereupon Raleigh kissed the admiral again, and sent loving messages to Jack Hawkins and Dick Grenville and all the other gallant gentlemen that quaffed their ale with eyes on the sea on Plymouth Hoe.
Johnnie Morgan stood watching the last wagon from his harvest field go creaking and groaning into the rickyard in the rear of his house. It was quite early in the afternoon, and the September sun shone with an ardour worthy of fierce July. There was a wind, but it came dead from the south, and its passage across the hot, moist sands of the river had no cooling influence upon it. Johnnie mopped his brow and leant wearily upon a pitchfork whilst a maiden ran indoors for a flagon of cider. She came back, followed closely by a dusty stranger.
The farmer stared at the stranger. The latter surveyed Johnnie pretty coolly, measured him from head to heel, and then took off his hat with a sweeping forward movement of the arm. "By the look of thee thou art Master Morgan, the yeoman of Blakeney, for whom I have hunted high and low since noon," he exclaimed.
"I am Master Morgan," replied Johnnie; "who art thou?"
"Timothy Jeffreys, at your service. I serve the good knight, Sir Walter Raleigh."
"Say no more until thy throat be better moistened," cried Morgan, handing him the flagon of cider. "Let it never be said that a message from the noble Sir Walter was spoken to me with dry lips."
Master Jeffreys took the cider off at a draught. "Passable--on a hot day, palatable--to a man thirsty enough to lap from a wayside ditch; but--!" he shook his head expressively, "'tis not Devonshire juice, Master Morgan."
"True; 'tis good Glo'stershire, and we humble forest folk keep sound heads and sound stomachs by quaffing it. I'm sorry 'tis not to your liking; maybe I should cry 'faugh!' over your Devonshire tipple, good sir." Johnnie was annoyed, for he prided himself on his apple-brew, and the airs and graces of Master Jeffreys were not altogether to his liking. "You have a message to me," he said. "No doubt you will tell it better sitting than standing. Come into my parlour.--Meg, take this gentleman's cloak and dust it, and bring him a brush for his boots." The maid took the horseman's cloak, and her master led his guest indoors. Meg was ready on the threshold to brush off the heavy coating of red, forest dust.
"Bachelor?" asked Jeffreys when he found himself lying back in a cosy chair, a bowl of sweet, old-time flowers adjacent to his nose.
"Bachelor!" answered Johnnie.
"Pardon my question; but this room is so trim and neat that, methought, there must be some dainty housewife under the roof."
"And thou wert curious to see her."
"Exactly. I have travelled, Master Morgan, and I love to look about me and ponder upon what I see."
"Thy conclusions are not always correct."
"The wisest men make mistakes, Master Morgan."
"What a comfort to us that are fools!" ejaculated the forester. "But thy message, my good sir."
"I like thy house; 'tis uncommon pretty."
"A good enough nest," assented Morgan.
"Wants another bird in it."
"True!"
"Thou hast no thought of quitting the homestead?"
"Heaven forbid! 'twas my father's before me. I'll never leave it."
"That's a pity."
"How so?"
"I've come down to fetch thee away."
Johnnie was losing patience with his visitor. His thoughts were busy with the rick-makers in the yard, and Master Jeffreys was in no hurry to say his say and be gone. He gave himself more airs than the knight his master. "Sit and rest thyself," exclaimed the farmer, getting up. "I can see that thy story will keep another hour. I'll send the wench into thee with some ale and venison. Eat and drink and take thine ease until I come to thee again." Without another word he vanished.
"A hasty fellow," commented Master Jeffreys. "A few trees and a muddy river make up his world. A winter in London will open his eyes and give him a broader view of life; then he will behave in a more leisured manner."
Johnnie saw to the unlading of his last wagon and the shaping off of his wheat-rick. Then he went indoors again, and found his visitor ready to deliver his message without any more beating about the bush. It was short, but pointed. Jeffreys--who described himself as a poor gentleman of Devon attached to the fortunes of his more famous neighbour--was instructed to invite, or rather command, Master Morgan's presence in London. Raleigh had spoken of him to the Queen, and the admiral had also written concerning him. Her Majesty was anxious to see the valiant forester, and Jeffreys duly impressed upon him the necessity of seizing so glorious a chance to push his fortunes.
But Morgan was not so eager; in fact, he told the messenger that, much as he loved Raleigh and honoured the Queen, he did not propose to venture into London. Jeffreys argued. Morgan was firm. "I'll not come except at the direct command of the good Sir Walter or the Queen. If I am left any choice in the matter, I choose to abide in the forest."
"Very well," said Jeffreys, "then I'll be going. My steed will be rested. Canst give me a guide to Newnham? I want a Captain Dawe."
"Ah!" cried Johnnie, all ears in a moment.
"The knight hath commissioned me to deliver a letter to a Mistress Dorothy Dawe."
"Then I'll get me out of my workday suit and walk to Newnham with thee," exclaimed the farmer. "There's nought so refreshing as a tramp along the shaded, woodland ways, and I have a little business of mine own to do with Captain Dawe. I shall serve thee and myself at the same time." So much the yeoman said aloud. Inwardly he muttered, "I'll not have this bowing and scraping image ducking and bobbing before my Dolly, and sniffing round her parlour like a dog that hopes to start some quarry from behind chair or table. He'll be in luck if his message-carrying doesn't get him a cracked crown. I hope the knight hath not many such as he in his train."
Jeffreys stared when his guide came again into the sunny parlour prepared for his walk to Newnham. The rough farmer in hodden gray had disappeared, and in his place stood a stalwart and handsome young gentleman in green slashed doublet and hosen of soft cream cloth. A green cap with a white swan's feather perched jauntily on the dark, curling hair, and from a belt of pale buckskin hung a sword with a delicately chased handle. The "poor gentleman of Devon" fresh from London and the court felt as gay as a dusty barndoor fowl might feel beside a lordly peacock.
"La! Master Morgan," he cried, "I'm glad thou hast no mind for London in my company. In good sooth, I've no wish to walk down Chepe or Whitehall with thee at my elbow. Ne'er a wench would give an eye to me. Even through the forest, with nought save the birds and beasts to quiz at us, I think I'll come along humbly in the rear with my cap in my hand. You foresters go a-visiting in as smart a guise as a town gallant goes to the play. Dost mind if I wash my face, comb my locks, and have another brushing ere we set forth?"
"Ha' done with thy jesting, good sir; thou art a traveller from afar, and lookest the part to perfection. I am at mine ease at home going to pay a call to a pretty neighbour. Let us be jogging; 'tis a long walk to Newnham, and the afternoon is wearing late."
The two young men set out for the little river town. Morgan at first had little to say, and let his companion rattle on as he pleased about London--its streets, shops, taverns, and theatres. But, by-and-by, he became eager over the wild beauties of river and forest, and he told tales of cave and cliff and pool, of boar and deer, pirate and fisherman, and forced Master Jeffreys to listen. And so they got to Newnham and the pretty cottage with fair flowers outside and a fairer flower within. "This is Captain Dawe's house," said Johnnie.
"I thank thee heartily. I can knock and introduce myself and mine errand, and leave thee free to go at once to the pretty maid in whose honour thou hast decked thyself so gallantly."
"Trouble not thyself, Master Jeffreys; I shall do my business the better by coming in to quicken thine. Follow me; I am in the habit of entering this house without going through the ceremony of knocking." Saying this, the forester lifted the latch and stood aside for his companion to cross the threshold first. A sound of singing came from the kitchen.
"A pretty bird in a pretty cage," said Jeffreys.
"E'en so," commented Morgan; "thine eyes and ears are passably good for a townsman. Pardon me leaving thee for a moment."
Morgan strode off kitchenwards. There was a sudden, "La, Jack! thou dost look like a feast day. Mind the flour!" After that Jeffreys always declared that he heard the sound of a vigorous kiss. Silence followed; then excited whisperings; then a scamper of light feet; and Morgan returned and ushered his waiting companion into the parlour. "Captain Dawe is down by the river," he said; "Mistress Dorothy will be with us anon."
"And the pretty bird that sang in the kitchen over the flour tub?"
"Was Mistress Dorothy."
"Thy sleeve is whitened, Master Morgan."
Johnnie coolly brushed away the tell-tale smudge. "Women always smother a room up on baking-day," he replied.
Dorothy came in.
"This is Sir Walter's man, who hath a packet for thee.--Master Jeffreys, this is Mistress Dawe."
Dorothy curtsied, and the messenger bowed. "Never had long journey so pretty and pleasant an ending," he said. "Here is a packet from my master, the gallant knight Sir Walter Raleigh. I am to take back an answer."
Dorothy took the packet, blushing at the sight of the pretty ribbons wherewith it was tied. "I am honoured indeed," she murmured; "pray you be seated, fair sir."
Chapter XVI.
TO LONDON TOWN.
The packet that Master Jeffreys handed to Dorothy was too large and too heavy for a mere missive; and the maid, recalling some jocular promises of Raleigh's, at once suspected that some London gew-gaw lay snug within, and tore off the wrappings with eager fingers. Her hopes were not disappointed, and a dainty pair of silver shoebuckles shone in the sunlight.
"Dear heart alive! surely they are not for me," cried Dolly.
"Read the letter, mistress," said Jeffreys.
A knot of blue ribbon was the only seal on the knight's letter, and the blushing maiden opened and read; and, as she read, the rich colour of her cheeks grew ever richer and deeper, and Johnnie pulled his cap-feather to pieces and watched her. She finished, sighed, looked at her lover and at the writer's messenger, then, with a "By your leave, Master Jeffreys," she handed the missive to Johnnie. "Read," she said.
"Nay, why should I?" was the somewhat sheepish response.
"Because I wish it," said Dolly promptly.
"I am bad at reading script; each one hath too much of his own fashion in the twists and curls of the letters."
"This is as plain as Bible print. Art going to London?"
"No!"
Dolly's face fell. "Hath not Master Jeffreys given thee Sir Walter's message?"
"Ay, and I have sent back a civil and courteous 'No.' What should I do in such a place?"
"What a question for a fellow of spirit to ask!" cried Dolly.
"What a question, indeed!" echoed Jeffreys; "and a sweet maid with her toes tingling to tread the golden pavements! Read, Master Morgan; the gallant knight's words will speak more persuasively than my poor tongue."
Johnnie took the letter, and read as follows:--
"To MISTRESSE DAWE. Bye ye hande of my trustie manne, Timothie Jeffreys--Greetynges to you, faire mistresse, and to youre excellent and honourable sire.
"To-daye, a softe wind hath come up from ye west, tempering ye heate and broil of ye towne, and whisperynge to me of cool forest glades and greene paths bye a rushynge river. Straightwaie closynge mine eyen to gette a cleare vision of ye same, I am minded of deare friendes whose feete have kept time with mine along ye shaded wayes. Here, before me on my table, hathe my servante placed freshe flowres from countrie hedgerowe and garden, to sweeten the close aire that cometh in from ye swelterynge streetes. And, straightwaie, I bethinke me how sweete this olde citie would be if onlie Ye Rose of Dean Forest would come hither with her coloure and her perfume!
"Soe, gentle mistresse and deare friende, I am, on ye sudden, hasting to do what I have purposed for many dayes. Her Majestie hathe a desire to see a certaine gallant youthe that dwelleth hard bye ye rivere atte Blakeney, and I have a desire to showe a pretty maiden ye sightes of London towne, of the whiche we spoke many a time in ye cool of ye forest. Therefore, come away with brave Master Morgan and youre estimable father, ye captaine. My manne will guide you, and I will welcome you righte heartilie. In assurance that you will come, I shall bespeake lodgynges with a worthie dame of my acquaintance. Persuade Master Morgan; it will be for his certaine goode. I shall command him bye worde of mouthe; but as I knowe the rogue--though merrie enough in some wayes and eager for travel--is rooted on Severne side like an oak, 'twill neede some powere like thine to move him.
"Commende me and my invitation to youre sire; accepte a triflynge gift at my handes; and may God be with you all and give us a joyouse meetynge.--Youres, in all knightlie devoirs, WALTER RALEIGH."
Johnnie handed the letter back.
"Well?" asked Dorothy.
"I do not think your father will consent; 'tis a perilous journey for a maid."
"Not when three brave gentlemen ride with her."
"I like not the scheme. What is London to home-dwelling forest folk?"
"'Tis the heart of the world," broke in Jeffreys, "and no man can say he knoweth life until he hath felt the pulse-beat of the great city."
"I am woodland bred, good sir, and shrink from the prisonment of streets and walls. Half a day in Gloucester makes me fret like a caged bird."
"A man must see life in its many aspects if he would claim to have lived at all, Master Morgan."
"I do not agree. A man will see deeper into a stream if he sits and watches than will a fellow who splashes noisily about. However, I am bounden to Mistress Dorothy by a hundred acts of kindness that she did me when I lay fevered and with a broken head. If her heart is set upon this jaunt, and her father does not say 'Nay,' I'll to London or anywhere else she wills. Nevertheless, for my own liking, I had rather bide at home."
Dorothy beamed at the forester. "I was half tempted to remind thee that thou didst owe me a mended head. I am glad I did not," she said.
"There is no need to remind me of even a look thou hast given me," replied Johnnie. "But here comes the captain; his word will be law to us in this matter."
Captain Dawe came in, and welcomed Master Jeffreys most heartily when he learned whom he served. His brow puckered, however, over the knight's letter.
"What dost thou say to the project?" he asked Morgan.
"I am pledged to do as Dorothy wishes."
"And thy wish, my lass?"
"Is to go to London."
"I might have guessed that without troubling to ask. My bones are getting old, and 'tis a long ride."
"We will go at your own pace, father."
"I must think on't; 'tis no light matter for a simple man like myself."
Captain Dawe thought over the matter for a night and a day, and he consulted half Newnham before he arrived at a decision. He made up his mind to go. Then came manifold preparations. Clothing and arms received careful attention. Dolly's best gowns came out of lavender, and Morgan set the tailor busy upon new doublet and hosen. Master Jeffreys lodged with the captain, and gave all the benefit of his impartial advice. The knight's man was a personage in Newnham for more than a week, and he carried off the dignity in excellent style. Johnnie bought Dorothy a stout saddle horse to replace the forest pony she usually rode; and at last, on a sunny morning, the little cavalcade rode along the river-path towards Gloucester. Several friends and neighbours went with them as far as the city.
They rested that night in Northleach, over the other side of the hills. Thence they went through Burford to Oxford; afterwards riding in easy daily stages through Wycombe and Uxbridge to London town. Halting for a last time at Mary-le-bone, a few miles from the city gates, where they cleansed themselves from the dust and soil of travelling, they rode thence to Charing, along the Strand past Alsatia, the Temple, and Whitefriars, and, crossing the Fleet River, entered the city by the Lud Gate, St. Paul's great church looking down on them from the hilltop.
Master Jeffreys halted finally at the "Swanne," in Wood Street off the Chepe.
Chapter XVII
SIR WALTER AS CHAPERON.
That same evening the Devonshire knight, apprised by Master Jeffreys of the arrival of his forest friends, paid them a visit in the Wood Street hostelry. He himself had lodgings at Whitehall, near to the court. He welcomed them most warmly, paid Dorothy many pretty compliments, and enjoined the hostess to have the greatest care of her precious charge.
"Let but a hair of Mistress Dawe be injured beneath thy roof, goodwife," said he, with a twinkle in his eye, "and a whole host of wild fellows from caves and holes in the mighty forest will swarm hither for revenge. Dark, terrible beings are they, who spend much of their time in the gloomy depths of the mighty woodland or in the very bowels of the earth. Wild Irish or Spaniards are nought to them. I have seen them eat up such folk at a mouthful! This nymph is their maiden queen. Have a care how ye all treat her!"
The plump hostess, who knew her knight for a merry jester, was yet half inclined to believe his account of the forest dwellers, and she looked with added interest upon the blushing Dolly. Master Morgan was quite to her mind.
"I am a widow," she said in confidence to the captain, "and 'tis a great comfort to have a fellow of so many inches, and an honest face atop of them, under one's roof."
The captain agreed, and accepted the invitation of Mistress Stowe (the hostess) to drink a cup of sack with her in her own parlour.
Sir Walter left his man with the forest folk in the capacity of guide and counsellor, promising to come again early on the morrow and take them the round of the city sights. Johnnie went abroad that evening, down Chepe as far as Cornhill; but Dorothy and the captain preferred to remain indoors, and Mistress Stowe entertained them with stories of the great city, telling of the great changes that had taken place of late years--how scores of churches and religious houses had been pulled down and hundreds of priests and monks driven out because of the Reformation.
"I have heard my father say," she declared, "that in his time every second man you met with in the streets of London was monk or priest; churches stood everywhere, and there was a perpetual ding-dong of bells from morn till night. Now you will look in vain for a monk; the bells are grown silent; and the churches are heaps of ruins, or their sites occupied by warehouses built of their stones. The monasteries and nunneries are turned into dwelling-places for the rich folk and favourites of the court."
She told them of the tournaments held in the great street called "Chepe;" of the pageants on the river; the bull-baiting, bear-baiting, and morris-dancing, and the plays at the theatres. She had an entranced audience of two until Morgan and Jeffreys returned from their ramble.
The next morning about eleven o'clock Sir Walter came in and found the dinner just served, so he dined with his friends; and then, after a pipe of tobacco--in which neither the captain nor Morgan ventured to join him--he took them abroad. Down Chepe they went, past the fine shops of goldsmith, silversmith, and mercer. The broad thoroughfare was thronged with gaily-dressed people, afoot and on horseback, and the apprentices cried their masters' wares so lustily that the place rang again. 'Twas "What d'ye lack, pretty mistress? Is it gold or jewels, fal-lals or laces? Buy, buy, gallant sirs; knick-knacks, pretty things, and gew-gaws for the lady!"
"Bones o' me!" gasped Johnnie, as he wriggled from the clutches of two persevering apprentices; "an I had the fee-simple of my scrap of land in the forest in my pocket, these rogues would have it from me in an afternoon walk. What wouldst thou like, Dolly? Let me buy thee something."
But Dorothy, who was just in front leaning on the knight's arm, had eyes more for the crowd than for the brave things displayed in the shops. Gallant after gallant bowed gracefully to her, for all knew the famous knight; and the ladies eyed her keenly and critically, wondering who she might be. It was a proud day for Dorothy. She was quick enough to notice that her clothing was not quite according to London fashions; but if she were not as gaily dressed as the ladies who stared at her, she had the comforting thought that her cavalier was the best-dressed and handsomest man that walked along Chepe that September day. So she answered Johnnie's question with, "Buy me whatever thou wilt; I shall say 'thanks!' But ask me not to make a choice at this time and from such a bewilderment of riches."
So the young forester shook his head to all pestering salesmen, and kept his money in his pocket for that day.
By the Royal Exchange on Cornhill Sir Walter was stopped for a moment by the Lord Mayor, who wanted a little court news on a certain matter affecting the city. Then on he went again to the Tower. The governor, a close friend of the knight's, readily admitted the party, and showed them over the grim old fortress and palace in which, alas! the brave Raleigh was destined to spend so many lonely years. He seemed to have some foreboding of this that day, and when the governor was telling Dorothy stories of some unfortunates who had spent their last days within the frowning walls, or left them only for the block on Tower Hill, Raleigh sighed and remarked, "'Tis but a step from a sovereign's smile and the summer of the court to the gloom and winter of this place. In dreams I sometimes see myself taking the very fateful step."
This he said aside to Morgan, and the young fellow was so struck by the tone in which the words were said that they remained fixed in his memory, and he recalled them with bitter sorrow in after years when the brave knight's fears had reached their awful fulfilment.
From the Tower steps the knight took a wherry and went up the river as far as Blackfriars. Shooting the arches of London Bridge gave Dorothy one quick spasm of fear, for the craft that went ahead of them, being somewhat clumsily handled, went crash into a pier, spun round, filled and sank, and left its occupants screaming and struggling in the water. All were rescued, the boatman himself scrambling nimbly into Raleigh's boat.
"The tide is not so strong as that which races up the Severn," said Johnnie; "sure 'tis bad boating that comes to grief here."
"Not so, my master," replied the dripping boatman; "'tis the plaguy narrowness of these arches and the jutting of the pier foundations that cause the mishaps. Every fool that has handled an oar cannot shoot London Bridge."
"That may be," assented the forester; "every stream has its shoals and currents; nevertheless this Thames tide is to the Severn bore as calf is to angry bull."
Meanwhile Sir Walter was pointing out objects of interest to his fair companion. "Yonder building," he said, pointing to a hexagonal structure on the Surrey side of the river, "is the Globe Theatre. I must take ye all there some afternoon to hear some pretty comedy of sweet Will Shakespeare's. Master Morgan hath an ear for poetry, I believe; he will not snore through the love-making scenes."
Dolly blushed. At Blackfriars steps they landed, went into the city by the Lud Gate, passed through St. Paul's and out into the Chepe again; thence to the "Swanne," where the knight took leave of them, promising to have them down to Whitehall next day if his duties at court gave him any leisure.
The shops in Chepe were closed; the apprentices ran loose with plenty of noise and racket. The sober merchants walked out to the Moorfields, with wife on arm and daughters dutifully following in modest train. Work was ended. London was taking its evening recreation.
Chapter XVIII.
THREE BROKEN MARINERS.
"Art not coming abroad, Dolly? 'Tis a most rare morning."
Morgan was leaning his length against the side-post of the door of Mistress Stowe's kitchen; his head reached to the lintel, and the smoky rafters of the low ceiling were within easy reach of his hand. Dolly stood near the fire, her face rosy with the heat, and her pretty gown hidden beneath a long apron. She glanced through the window into the sunny yard, and then at a pile of dainty cakes she had just kneaded and fashioned.
"Nay, Johnnie, I'll not come this morning. I promised our hostess to bake her some confections after our forest fashion, and I cannot leave so delicate a duty only half done. Go thou with Master Jeffreys, and bring back two lusty appetites. I will bide at home, housewife fashion, and prepare ye the wherewithal to satisfy the appetites when ye have gotten them."
"Where is thy father?"
"With Mistress Stowe in her parlour. She is showing him some rare things that her brother brought from the Spanish Main. He will have eyes for nothing else this side of noon."
So Morgan joined Jeffreys, and the two went along Chepe westwards towards St. Paul's. At the end of the great street stood the gate known as the "Little Gate," and they went under the low archway into the cathedral precincts. Inside, the place was as busy as Chepe itself. Shops clustered under the wall, their gaudy signs swinging and creaking in the September breeze, and 'prentices cried their masters' wares and importuned passing folk to buy. The two men pushed their way through the throng towards the northern transept of the great church, and there found their path blocked again by a crowd that stood around St. Paul's cross and pulpit, all ears for the words of a popular city preacher. The cleric's discourse was more of a political oration than a sermon. He thundered against "Rome" and the "Scarlet Woman," and denounced the King of Spain as the veritable "child of the devil," and he called upon all men to be up and doing something for the destruction of the "monster." Master Jeffreys stopped to listen, and Morgan had perforce to stay with him. The reverend orator dwelt in glowing terms on the riches of the Indies, the rights of all Christians to a share therein, and the greed of Spain in refusing other nations a proper share. He played upon his audience as a skilled player upon a harp, touching each string of emotion in turn, and then striking a chord to which all strings would vibrate. For a moment he excited religious emotion, then political fervour, then greed, love of glory and adventure, then national pride and hatred of Spain, then all these together by one cunning sentence. The forester out from the west felt his heart beating rapidly, his ears warming and tingling, and his right hand fidgeting with the handle of his sword. His companion could not keep still, and hot ejaculations sprang from his lips. He was a true Devon man of that roaring time, sailor, patriot, and pirate all rolled into one.
"By my beard, Master Morgan," he gasped, "I have been feeling ill and full of strange qualms and sinkings these many days past. 'Twas an active spirit rebelling against imprisonment in an idle body. I must to sea again--this dalliance in towns and in the company of sleek shopkeepers and peacock-garbed gallants is slow death to a fellow of mettle. I must get me down to Plymouth again, and join any bold captain that hath a mind to turn his ship westward ho!"
Morgan sighed. "Bones o' me!" he exclaimed, "the parson hath stirred something within my bosom also."
The sermon--if such it could be called--being ended, the two young men went with the crowd through the church door, and into the dim and lofty transept. And what a crowd it was to find in London's principal church! The passage through the building from north to south was a public thoroughfare. Porters, hucksters, errand boys went through with basket and handbarrow, passing across aisles and nave before the very screen that shut in choir and altar. Pedlars stood against the tall pillars, and pushed the sale of their wares. Men bought and sold and bargained as in the churchyard outside or Chepe beyond. Servants stood for hire; bravoes lurked behind the gray stone columns in dark corners, ready to take the price of blood from any hand that offered it. Broken men, needy adventurers, dissolute women--all had their regular stations in the sacred building, which was fair, market, and general rendezvous for every class and trade, legitimate or illegitimate, that had its footing in London Town.
Master Jeffreys elbowed his way into the nave and strode down the middle aisle, Morgan at his heels, full of astonishment and healthy country disgust. Any gallant who came strutting along to show his fine feathers received scant courtesy or elbow-room from the indignant forester. He thrust more than one roughly aside, without so much as a "by your leave," and his angry face, huge frame, and athletic build forced the hustled ones to keep civil tongues in their heads. Near the western door a knot of brown-faced, lean-looking men were standing, and one started forward at the sight of Jeffreys, hesitated a moment, and then put forth his hand.
"Little Timothy! or tropic suns have blinded my eyes," he cried.
Jeffreys scanned the speaker's weather-stained face.
"It's not Paignton Rob, surely?"
"It's all that's left of him, Timothy."
"Thou art shrunken."
"And lopped, brother, lopped."
"Spain?"
"Inquisition."
"Indies?"
"Vera Cruz. Shall I introduce my friends? We are nigh broken, and not too proud to accept a little charity from a Devon man. Thy heart used not to beat in a niggard's bosom."
"It has not changed lodgings, Rob. Wilt know my friend here? This is Master Morgan of Gloucestershire--a good west countrie man, to say the least. He has had his cut at King Philip, and is a friend of our gallant Raleigh."
"Then I'm open to love him," cried Paignton Rob, holding out a hand that had lost a thumb. "'Tis a poor grip that fingers can give, Master Morgan," he said apologetically. "The monks of Vera Cruz can best tell thee where little 'thumbkin' is."
Johnnie took the proffered hand. "I am proud to know one who has sailed the Western Ocean," he replied.
The mariner called up his two friends, who proved thumbless like himself.
"Nick Johnson, and Ned his brother, both of Plymouth town. Master Timothy Jeffreys, henchman to Sir Walter Raleigh, and Master Morgan, friend."
Hand-clasps went round. Jeffreys peeped into the purse that hung at his girdle.
"Here is the price of a few flagons of sack, friends. Have you a fancy for any particular tavern?"
"All taverns are alike to thirsty men," answered Rob. "Lead us where thou wilt; we'll speak our thanks under one signboard as well as another."
"What say you then to the 'Silver Lion' in Dowgate?"
"'Tis a good house."
The party left the cathedral by the western door, went south through the churchyard, and out at the gate that led riverwards. Thence they strode down a steep street towards the Dowgate quay, halting at a gabled and timbered tavern within a stone's throw of the water. Down a flight of three steps they went into the sanded parlour, and seated themselves round a corner table. The drawer came bustling up with a "What do ye drink, my masters?"
"Bring us five flagons of sack," said Timothy.
"And a crust for our teeth," whispered Paignton Rob. The ears of the serving-man were keen, "Shall it be a venison pie?" he said.
"A venison pie," broke in Morgan; "and I pay."
Chapter XIX.
PAIGNTON ROB'S STORY.
The three broken sailor men attacked the ample venison pasty with a zeal and thoroughness that betokened long abstention from work of a similar nature, and the sack trickled gratefully down parched throats. Morgan and Jeffreys drank to their better fortune, but would not touch the food, pleading that their ordinary dinner time was a full hour off, and that they were pledged to make havoc of some pastries made by a certain young gentlewoman, who would undoubtedly be much grieved if they did not eat as heartily as was their wont. So the Paignton man and his Plymouth comrades shared the pie amongst themselves, the two others looking about and noting the other occupants of the inn parlour. Some of these were known by repute to Jeffreys, and he gave Morgan information concerning them.
The pie-dish stood empty. Johnnie expressed an opinion that apples were roasting somewhere. Nick Johnson sniffed the air, and promptly agreed with him, adding that the fragrance of roasting apples awoke memories of far-off Devon. Whereupon the forester remarked that they had a like effect upon him, and that he was minded to have a dish with a little cream, if all the company would join him. There was no objector, and each man was soon busy with hot apples and cream. After this Jeffreys ordered fresh flagons of wine, and asked Paignton Rob for his story.
"Will Master Morgan care for the recital?" queried Rob.
"My ears are burning," cried Johnnie. "I seem to have strolled out of Chepe this morning right into America. Stint not a word of thy story if thou hast any desire to please me."
"So be it, friends. I cannot but wish that some other man had the telling of it. You will remember--at least thou wilt, Timothy--how Captain John Oxenham sailed out from Plymouth with the Hawk, one hundred and forty ton barque, and a crew of seventy men, for the Spanish Main?"
"Ay; report says that all were slain by fever and the Indians."
"Therein doth report speak falsely. We three went with Oxenham, and we sit here to-day to tell the tale. Whether any other tongue hath told it I cannot say. There is scant hope of any more survivors. Well, to the story itself. We went out of Plymouth Sound, threescore and ten, men and boys, well armed and victualled for six months. We turned our prow westwards, prepared like good adventurers to take what fortune the seas might bring us. The voyage proved a speedy one, with a singular lack of ungentle weather: good omen, we thought, for the success of our enterprise. On the way our captain's plans, which had been somewhat uncertain at the first, took fixed shape. We passed south of the main isles of the Indies, steering for the eastern seaboard of the Isthmus of Panama. We cast along the shore for two days seeking an anchorage, and we found what we sought in a wooded creek, fringed and thronged with islets. A winding river emptied into the creek, and the banks were so thickly clothed with forest as almost to shut out the light of the sun. Dismasting our ship, we thrust her into a tiny bay o'erhung by giant trees, and neither from river nor bank could a glimpse of her be obtained. For a day we worked, making all snug aboard; then we loaded ourselves with provisions and arms, and set out to cross the isthmus to Panama itself, intending to rob the Spanish nest of the golden eggs that daily were laid therein.
"There is little to tell of the story of our march to the Pacific. We cut our way for days at a time through woods that were well-nigh impassable. We climbed mountains, threaded defiles, waded through stream and swamp. Our backs bent beneath the weight of our burdens; giant thorns tore, first our clothes, then afterwards our flesh. The sun roasted us by day; mists enwreathed and chilled us by night; a myriad insects bit us, and roaring beasts and lurking reptiles harassed our steps. Some of us were quickly down with fever, and added to the burdens of our comrades, for they bore us upon rude litters of boughs. Oxenham fought shy of the native villages, not being minded to give rumour the chance to herald our approach to the golden goal we sought.
"By good hap we came upon a stream at the foot of some hills, flowing westwards. We followed it for a while, until we felt assured that it was navigable, and also that it emptied itself into the Pacific. Then we halted, built huts for our sick, cut down timber and set about the making of a stout pinnace that would carry us on the rest of our quest. We also scoured the woods for game and fruits, and harvested the waters for fish. When our boat was builded, our sick were also upon their feet again. We had brought with us three light cannon; these we mounted on our little craft, rigged up mast and sail, and went down the swift current, westward ho! once more.
"It was no longer possible to avoid the native towns and villages, so at the first we engaged a guide who knew enough of coast Spanish to understand our wants and be our interpreter to his friends. We found that the Indians hated the Spaniards and dreaded their rapacity and cruelty. As Englishmen and foes of Spain, we always got a welcome; and Oxenham had wit enough to be kind, courteous, and generous, and so win a welcome for us for our own sakes. Our voyage down the river was a sort of triumphal progress, and we made ten thousand faithful allies. At last came the day when the river broadened to an estuary; when we saw the tide marks along the roots of the mangroves, and the salt flavour was in the air, and white-winged gulls swept screaming over our heads, scaring away the gaudy, noisy parrots that had been our feathered companions for so long. The next morning the sun shot up for us, a golden ball of cheering presage, from out the glittering bosom of the Pacific. What a shout we raised! Weeks of toil and fever were forgotten, scars and bruises healed--or were felt no longer--when the glorious heave of ocean waters lifted our keel!"
Paignton Rob paused and lifted his flagon to his lips. He put it down reflectively. "Do ye mind that morn, comrades?" he asked.
"Shall we ever forget it!" exclaimed the two Plymouth men in a breath. The company nodded to Rob, and took a friendly sip of sack in his honour. He took up again the thread of his story.
"A native that had come down the coast from the direction of Panama came to our captain with information that two treasure-ships were expected from Peru, and he offered to be our guide to the Isle of Pearls, situated about five-and-twenty leagues from Panama itself, and in the direct line of sailing to the city. We accepted his offer gladly, and the fellow led us to a snug anchorage whence we could espy our prey and make ready to sally forth and seize him.
"We lay under the island for one night and the better part of a day before our lookout in a tree-top at the edge of a steep cliff sang out, 'Sail ho! Spanish rig!' We were alert on the instant, watching the Spaniard bowling north-eastwards before a stiff breeze. At the right moment we slipped our cable, hoisted sail, and stood out to sea right in his path. No news of our presence on the isthmus had got abroad, and the foe did not suspect us until he was within range of our small guns, when we promptly sent a couple of shots splintering into his bulwarks. He was not long before he swung round and replied. But we were too low in the water to be in any danger from his bigger pieces, and in a little while we were under his lee and swarming aboard. For a few minutes there was as pretty a fight as man could wish for; then the Spaniard struck his flag and threw down his weapons.
"Well, we rifled cabins and holds; got about a hundred goodly bars of gold and a chest of pearls. The cabin gave us an excellent supply of wine and some curious golden images of native workmanship. We helped ourselves also to some better clothing, then let the Spaniard go his way.
"For two more days we hung about the island, then seized a ship with a cargo, mostly of silver bars. Our pinnace was now so heavily laden that we durst not venture to put anything more aboard her. We were rich enough already, and, knowing that the authorities at Panama would soon hear of our exploits, we turned south to our river again, and set out on our journey back to our hidden ship and the Atlantic.
"So far we had lost but two men, and one of these had died from fever. Half a score of us, maybe, had received wounds. The Spanish dogs will not fight much on a ship's deck, and the silver galleon offered us hardly any resistance. 'Tis easy work enough, this gathering of Spanish gold in the Indies. Do I speak within the strict bounds of truth, comrades?"
"True as a Bible verse, Rob," said Nick Johnson; and brother Ned assented with a seaman's "Ay! ay!"
Rob took advantage of the pause to take another peep into his flagon, and Johnnie asked him if he could see bottom.
"Depth enough to float my barque a little longer," replied Rob.
"We did not waste much time feasting or merrymaking with our Indian allies; we just stayed long enough for civility and the procuring of a couple of canoes and rowers to ease the burden in our pinnace. Then we set off up-stream. An under-chief came with us, and he was to obtain carriers for our booty and provisions at the last village before we should be forced to quit the river and take to the forests and mountains. But we did not get along so quickly as we purposed at the first. News of our victories over the detested Dons had spread like a fire through the isthmus. Chiefs came to palaver, offer gifts, and sue for our protection. The whole land wanted to shelter beneath the banner of St. George, and our eastward voyage was a sort of triumphal procession. This was all very pleasant, but 'twas dallying with danger. The Spaniards were acquainted with our doings--the captains of the rifled ships would tell them so much; and some of us argued that if every petty Indian chief knew exactly where to meet us, then assuredly the Dons must be aware of our route also. However, 'tis hard to make victors cautious. We had a hearty contempt for the Spaniards in Panama, and did not give them credit for pluck enough to follow us. So we journeyed along in a fool's paradise, surrounded by admiring Indians, and so laden with booty and presents that we could only move at a snail's pace.
"One day a native runner came to us from a friendly village with the news that a force of a hundred Spaniards, well armed, was in pursuit. The Indians were eager for us to stay and meet the Dons, promising us help if we would do so. Oxenham decided he had done enough for glory just then, and thought it wiser to get back to his ship and sail for home; our spoil was too precious to be risked, and was a tempting bait to any foe. We set out at once. Coming to a place where two streams entered the main river, we took the smallest waterway, hoping thus to baffle pursuit, for our real path lay along the main stream. Our ruse would have succeeded but for a trivial oversight. The Dons came to the parting of the ways, and were nonplussed as to our route. They had decided to follow the main stream, and were seated in their canoes ready to resume the pursuit, when a bunch of plucked feathers came down the smallest stream. Within ten minutes other feathers came floating along, and some were bloodstained. They rightly guessed that these were evidence that we had prepared food somewhere higher up. Boats were forsaken, and a march through the forest commenced. That very night they surprised us. We fought well, and our Indian friends proved no cowards. Fifty of us, fairly well laden with gold, got away, and after a toilsome march reached the place where our ship had been hidden--only to find it gone!
"We hunted the creek on both sides, and found unmistakable signs that the Dons had found our vessel and confiscated it. Why they did not lie in ambush for us we could not imagine. Maybe they thought us effectually trapped, and likely to be an easy prey to fever, or to their attack after fever had had its way with us. For a while we were in despair; then we remembered old England, and what she expects of her sons. We buried our gold, felled trees, and began to build canoes. But the side of the creek at night was a death-trap. Heavy foetid mists wreathed up from the waters, poisoning the air; noxious insects hummed about our couches, and loathly reptiles crawled out of the mud and chilled our hearts with their horrible croakings. One by one we sickened; in ones, twos, threes we died. Then the cunning Dons came in force. They were five to our one, and we trembling with fever. We fought as well as we could. Many fell fighting; others, too weak to stand to deliver a stout blow, were taken as prisoners: we three were amongst these. Our captors cured us of the fever, then handed us over to the priests at Vera Cruz. A year we spent in prison. We have been on the rack; the thumbscrews bereft us of thumbs, for they crushed them so badly that we were fain to have them off, fearing the arm might mortify. The villains cropped us of one ear, so that they might track us if we chanced to escape. By the mercy of God we did escape, and, despite the mark set upon us, avoided recapture and found our way back to Plymouth. What perils we passed through in swamp and forest, by river and sea, ere we found an English ship I cannot now set forth. Let it suffice that we are here, alive and eager for further opportunities on the isthmus."
"How do you propose to get there?" asked Jeffreys.
"We would see thy master, Sir Walter, and get him to fit a ship. There is gold enough buried by the creek banks to repay him or any other man."
Jeffreys shook his head. "Sir Walter's eyes are turned farther south. He would find 'El Dorado.'"
Chapter XX.
ROB DINES AT "YE SWANNE."
Morgan had a host of questions to ask Paignton Rob, and he wont back to "Ye Swanne" in Wood Street, off Chepe, his head buzzing with many ideas. So occupied was he with his own thoughts that he replied but absently to Captain Dawe's remarks; and he quite forgot to offer Dolly any compliments over her pastries. The young lady was naturally indignant with a burly trencherman who devoured a round dozen of assorted confections that were put on his platter without discovering that they possessed any flavour whatsoever.
"La! Master Morgan!" she cried. "If I did not know that such a thing was impossible with such as thou art, I should declare thou hadst fallen in love."
The tone was sharp, and a trifle spiteful, so Johnnie's wits gathered themselves into marching order.
"So I have, Dolly," he answered. "I am enamoured of--"
"Whom?"
"A friend of Master Jeffreys."
The girl's cheeks flushed. "Thou art bold to say such a thing to me."
"I imbibed courage with a flagon of sack this morning."
"It hath got to thy head."
"And my heart, Dolly; I am afire, heart and head. I see visions, and pulse with great hopes."
"I trust the wench will prove kind, and not grow plain of face on a closer acquaintance."
"For that fair wish, a thousand thanks, dear Dolly."
"Mistress Dawe, if it please you, Master Morgan." Dorothy bobbed a scornful curtsy, and left the parlour.
"What's amiss with you two?" asked Captain Dawe. "Ye were billing and cooing like two pigeons over breakfast this morning."
"And shall be doing so again over supper," said Johnnie.
"What's this nonsense about a wench who is a friend to Master Jeffreys?"
"There is no wench. I am enamoured of a fellow with a visage like brown leather, and who hath but one thumb and one ear."
"Thou art talking in riddles."
"Master Jeffreys shall make them clear; he hath a better gift of words than I."
So the Devon man retold the story of John Oxenham's voyage; and he added many strange things that lie had heard from other Plymouth men who had gone to the Indies, and whom he had met in Raleigh's company. He himself had gone westwards to Virginia, and other parts of the American mainland, and could relate wonders from his own experiences. He talked for full two hours, and both Mrs. Stowe and Dorothy stole in to listen.
The next day Paignton Rob and his two stranded comrades found themselves seated at Mistress Stowe's table to dinner. Morgan and the captain hung about the aisles of St. Paul's for more than an hour, waiting in the hope that the sailors would appear. Jeffreys went down to Whitehall, found them in the neighbourhood of Raleigh's lodgings, and brought them into the city.
The three derelict mariners were not slow to divine one reason for the pressing invitation that had brought them hot-foot from Whitehall to Wood Street. Rob's story of the fabled Spanish Main had opened Mistress Stowe's door to such dilapidated guests; it would have opened hundreds of other English doors to the maimed adventurers. The whole country was smitten with the fever of travel, and possessed with the lust for wealth and conquest. Men and women believed strange things of the wonderful western world, and they listened eagerly and without question to things their great-grandchildren would scoff at.
A travelled sailor can fit himself into any company. Paignton Rob adjusted himself with the greatest nicety into his proper position that day. He ate and drank to repletion, praising every dish without stint, and paying his hostess such daring compliments that her round face was a very sunset of blushes.
Nick and Ned Johnson played their accustomed part of chorus, and just said "ay, ay" at the proper time and place. And Rob did not keep his audience too long waiting for his stories. He described the tropical seas--their storms and calms, their fish that flew, and the fearsome monsters that gambolled along their surface. He took his hearers into the gloomy forests, with their myriad forms of life, their gaudy birds and gorgeous insects, their lurking beasts and dense-packed horrors. Weird cries and terrifying howls rang out in imaginative sounds. And what horrific beings stalked in the dim alleys betwixt the giant trees, or peeped forth at the intrepid traveller from cave and den! One-horned beasts with fiery hoofs; dragons that had wings of brass, and vomited flames from cavernous throats; huge birds, enormous reptiles, flew or crawled in their appointed places. Two-headed men wielded clubs of stone; men with no heads at all, but one great eye in the centre of their breasts, glared malevolently from the pits wherein they had their habitation. The little company in the tavern parlour shivered with affright, and cast uneasy glances at the doorway. Then--wonderful Rob!--a sinewy, thumbless hand swept the air like an enchanter's wand, and lo! the scene was changed. Gloom and horror fled, the forest vanished, the malodorous swamp gave place to smiling meadow. The hills frowned no longer, but laughed with fertility and sparkled with a thousand fairy rills and cascades. Fair cities encircled their bases, and golden temples glittered in the ardent, tropical sunshine. Brown-skinned, gentle people flitted gracefully along the streets and through the squares. Music, barbaric but melodious, hummed through the fragrant air. Here was the paradise of dreams--bright colours, sweet sounds, fragrant odours, gentle beings, fair peace, and jocund plenty! Rob was a poet, and his audience panted with parting lips as he spread the scene before them.
Then he brought them nearer. See yonder roof?--plates of beaten gold! Yonder mule hath harness of exquisitely chased silver! Here comes a noble chief and his favourite wife, with a retinue of slaves. The soles of his sandals are of gold, the straps are studded with gems; pearls are sewn in hundreds in his bright-hued robes! Yet is he completely eclipsed by the splendour of his spouse. She is sprinkled, hair and clothing, with the precious yellow dust. The breeze blows it from her hair; she shakes it with a careless laugh from her silken garments; the slaves walk behind on a gold-strewn pathway. They value it no more than the beggar values the dust that blows along the Chepe in London on a July day. Ah! a gloriously generous headpiece hath Paignton Rob. Why stint the tale of glittering grains? In the land of "El Dorado" the sands of the rivers can be coined into minted money. Would mine hostess--who has so lavishly fed three poor sailor-men--like to go to a banquet in the palace of "El Dorado"? Nothing simpler!--'tis done with a wave of Rob's brown hand. See! the table is gold; the platters are the same. The pillars of sweet cedar that support the lofty roof are richer by far than those of Solomon's temple. And the "gilded one" smiles at his queen, and lifts a cup of rosy wine to his lips. Do the company notice that miracle of dazzling light he holds in his delicate brown hand? 'Tis cut from one precious stone. It is like a living fire, and the red wine glows warmly through it.
Such the land of "El Dorado"--the golden realm!--the home of an everlasting summer! Rob pauses dramatically; he comes to a full stop. How mean is the parlour of the comfortable Wood Street tavern! How paltry its pewter pots and clumsy flagons! How dull its smoky beams and walls!
"Ah! Ah!"--longing sighs echo and re-echo. Then come questions, timidly put at first, for no man would dare to throw suspicion on the seaman's stories. But--but who has seen any of these things?
Who? Why, Rob knows men, who know other men, who have heard from other men, who actually listened to dying Spaniards or faithful natives recounting how they themselves had seen these sights. Rob himself had gazed upon a sack of gold dust brought by a Jesuit missionary from "El Dorado's" kingdom. The monk had shovelled it with his own bare hands from the bed of a shallow lake. Nick Johnson, with a nervous and apologetic cough, announced that he had seen a bag of pearls brought from that same favoured land; and brother Ned, whose memory also got some stimulus from Rob's stories, related how lie met a Spanish prisoner in a Dutch town, who told him that the pebbles in "El Dorado's" land were all pearls or jewels, sometimes one, sometimes the other--just according to the haphazard luck of the thing. Then honest Rob took some more sack, and found that he distinctly remembered meeting a Bideford man on Plymouth Hoe who had sailed with a Bristol captain whose twin brother had shot a no-headed, breast-eyed monster, and had immediately afterwards been stunned by the stone club of a two-headed gentleman of those same parts. 'Twas an exciting adventure altogether, and Rob proceeded to remember the details and relate them. As for the forests, the swamps, the lurking reptiles and ravenous beasts, the huge crabs, venomous snakes, and the fevered ghosts and ghouls that wreathed up after sunset from the pools and rivers--why! Rob had seen all those things for himself. He had also handled bars of gold and lumps of silver, and let pearls run through his fingers like beads. Captain Dawe, Master Morgan, and the ladies might be assured that they had heard but a tithe of the wonders and horrors that might be told them. Ah! that wonderful New World! Brave Rob shook the head that was bereft of an ear. He had talked to them for three hours, but he had no gift of speech, and had been unable to give them any real idea of the glamour and mystery that lay beneath the setting sun.
Nevertheless, he had set each heart and brain pulsing and throbbing with wild dreams. The world was changing for Johnnie Morgan. The admiral and Raleigh had opened his eyes in the glades of the forest, and taught him to look beyond its treetops. Master Jeffreys had extended his view, and all men and all things in London Town seemed to probe deeper into his mind, and find new emotions and desires, and stir them into active life. The grim old Forest of Dean was dwarfing to a mere coppice; the rushing Severn was becoming an insignificant brook. The forester's heart was expanding; his eyes were opening; his arms were stretching forth to grasp that which was finite, yet infinite. He dreamed strange dreams; his eyes started open to behold wondrous visions. The fever of the time was getting into his blood. Vague, half-understood impulses moved him hither and thither. He groped, and touched nothing. He cried out, "What do I want?"
A woman answered the question the very next day.
Chapter XXI.
MORGAN GOES TO WHITEHALL.
In the early forenoon of the next day a man in the livery of Sir Walter came to "Ye Swanne" and asked for Master Morgan. He brought a command that the forester was to repair instantly to Whitehall, as the Queen had intimated that she would see him in the afternoon. The summons threw Johnnie into a small fever of nervous apprehension, and he wished heartily that he had never left his snug homestead at Blakeney. His fingers turned into thumbs, and Dorothy busied herself in fastening points and laces, adjusting his ruff, and setting his cap at the proper angle. Captain Dawe found that sword and belt required his critical attention, and Master Jeffreys started a most elaborate dissertation on court etiquette in "the most polite court in Europe." Johnnie's head buzzed, his mind wandered in a maze; and when at last he stepped out into the sunshine of the streets, he confessed to Mistress Stowe that he felt "like a thief going to be hanged." Captain Dawe had a desire to see the royal palace and its precincts, Jeffreys was wanted at Raleigh's lodgings, so all four gentlemen went westwards.
Along Chepe, through St. Paul's Churchyard, down the hill to the Lud Gate lay their way. Then they crossed the Fleet River and stepped out into Fleet Street. On their left was the palace of Bridewell, stretching down to the green margin of the Thames; on their right the fields went northwards to the villages of Bloomsbury, Clerkenwell, and Islington. The street was thick with dust and crowded with pedestrians and horsemen. Staid burghers walked soberly along, fops strutted, bullies swaggered, gentlefolks went in fitting dignity, and beggars whined for alms at the corners of the narrow lanes that, between the houses, led down to the river. Law students from the Temple were to be met with, chaffering with the market wenches for nuts and apples and bunches of flowers.
Master Jeffreys took charge of Morgan, and fed him full with information. "A wonderful thoroughfare, good sir!" he cried; "its dust hath been pressed by the feet of notable folk for many centuries, and will take the footprints of the great ones for many centuries to come. 'Tis the highway between our two ancient cities of London and Westminster. We will keep to the south side, for it is the more famous, and contains the houses of many of our nobles. The north side is left for the shopkeepers and smaller gentry. We have just passed the royal palace of Bridewell, and from here every foot of our way will have something to interest the curious and inquiring mind."
Johnnie stared down at the gray old palace, and looked questioningly at the ruins that lay next to it on the east.
"All that's left of the monastery of the Whitefriars," said Jeffreys. "The remains of monkish buildings cumber the ground outside of London walls as well as within. Some say 'twas a wicked thing to pull down so many fair edifices; others declare they were no better than plague-spots and heretical hovels on the fair face of a Protestant country, and that we are well rid of them."
"I have noticed," said Morgan, "that royal favourites from King Harry's time onwards have done most of the pulling down. The common folk appear to have had little voice in the matter, and not a finger in the lifting of the plunder."
"Quite so! quite so! Now let us step into the roadway. 'Tis dusty enough, and not innocent of some ugly holes, but 'tis safer for a little while. See those hangdog-looking fellows slouching before us? Ah! I need not tell thee what they are. Step out; let's see the sport."
There was a wild mêlée about a hundred yards ahead. A fellow had made a cut with his dagger at a lady's purse, and had been promptly knocked down by her cavalier. At the sound of the would-be robber's cry a dozen other rascals had rushed to his aid, and from the narrow lanes and alleys a horde of ruffians--male and female--had been vomited. They set upon the lady and her companion with cudgels and knives, and the gentleman was already lying in the dust. Peace-loving pedestrians had rushed to their aid, and a group of law students bore down into the fray in gallant style. Master Jeffreys whipped out his blade and ran, and Morgan went with him stride for stride. But the mob of ruffians disappeared as quickly as it had come forth; the cutpurse had been rescued, and the plunder he desired snatched by a slatternly wench.
Morgan uttered a hunting cry, and was dashing down a dim passage between two houses when Jeffreys jerked him back. "Not a foot farther if thou dost value thy life!"
Johnnie stopped, and saw in astonishment that no man was attempting pursuit.
"Are they to escape red-handed?" he cried.
His companion shrugged his shoulders. "He'd be an over-bold man who'd venture into the alleys and courts of Alsatia with less than fifty good swords at his back. The hangman would be busy for a month if all who merited his rope were dragged out of yonder dens. But we must be going; the captain is almost out of sight, and thou hast matters on hand that are of greater moment than the catching of a thief."
Walking on, the two came abreast of the Temple, and lawyers, scriveners, clerks, and students dotted the roadway.
"A sweetly built place is the Temple," commented Jeffreys: "cool alleys shaded with trees, spacious courts, goodly halls and chapels; fair gardens sloping sunnily and warmly to the south and the river. Ah! there is no fairer site on earth for a fine dwelling than on this bank of Father Thames. Thou wilt see by the great houses that we shall pass how many men are of my opinion."
Morgan came to Temple Bar, and saw, with a shudder, a row of mouldering heads atop of it. He passed beneath the archway and put foot in the famous Strand. Immediately before him the Maypole stretched skyward, its top still ornamented with a few fluttering rags of weather-bleached ribbon, mementoes of the festivities that had ushered in the fast-fading summer. On his left, with its front to the river, was a great house with its courts and gardens, and Master Jeffreys whispered,--
"The town house of my Lord Essex, the Queen's favourite and the great rival of the gallant knight we both love."
Morgan stood and gazed at the somewhat ugly pile with the greatest interest.
As he moved on a cleanly lad came across the road, with a shining pannikin in either hand, and asked politely whether "their worships" would care to quench their thirst in water drawn from the well of St. Clement or from Holy Well that was hard by.
"Which is the more precious liquid?" asked Morgan.
The lad quickly replied that he had no opinion, and that learned men and excellent divines could come to no agreement over the matter. His worship might drink of both and judge for himself; the charge was but a farthing.
"Cheaper than Mistress Stowe's sack, at any rate, if not so palatable," said Johnnie. He gave the lad a farthing and took the Holy Well pannikin, whilst his companion drained that which owned its virtues to the sanctity of St. Clement, whose church fronted them across the way. As neither tasted of both, they had, like the water-seller, no opinion as to the merits of the rival wells.
They walked on past Somerset House.
"A stately pile," said Morgan.
"Fairer even than Whitehall," replied Jeffreys. "'Twas built by an arch-robber, but the Queen favours it and dwells in it at times. 'Tis the goodliest palace along the Strand."
The Savoy, already centuries old and crumbling to decay, was passed; and then, by other noble edifices, the wayfarers went to the village of Charing.
They turned down by Queen Eleanor's Cross into the street leading to Whitehall itself. They passed through the Holbein Gate, down King's Street; and close under the shadow of the hoary abbey of St. Peter they halted at Raleigh's lodgings. Captain Dawe and his guide were resting in the cool porch and awaiting them.
Chapter XXII.
THE QUEEN.
John Morgan, yeoman and forester, rose from his knee, and stood, with bowed head and fumbling fingers, abashed in a most august presence. He plucked nervously at his cap, and dared not raise his face to confront the calm countenance of his sovereign. Elizabeth, for her part, scanned him most critically from top to toe. She noted the cut of his clothes, the stiffness of his ruff, the size of the buckles on his shoon; from these to the colour of his hair and the healthy tan of his skin, nothing escaped her. She was rapidly measuring him, height and girth, with the proportions of her handsome Devon knight who had led the shy young stalwart in.
"So this is the gallant young fellow who bled in thy service?" she said to Raleigh.
"And in the service of your Majesty," added the knight. "He saved the life of your humblest servant, but he also fought and bled in defence of your Majesty's honour and the integrity of your dominions."
Elizabeth looked again at the bent head. "Dost know the colour of mine eyes, Master Morgan?" she asked sharply.
"The colour of heaven, your Majesty," gasped Johnnie.
The Queen laughed. "I thought thou hadst not looked at them. 'Tis easy to see that thou hast kept company with a certain Walter Raleigh; thou canst assume modesty and yet flatter as glibly as he."
"Your Majesty!" cried Raleigh.
"Hath excellent eyesight, thank God!" added Elizabeth. "I wish I had found Master Morgan a simpler gentleman. I am sick of pretty speeches, and thought to find a plain, unspoiled Englishman who would speak naught but truth. Wilt let me see what colour thine eyes are, Master Morgan? I have noted every hair on the top of thy head."
Johnnie raised a flushed face to the pale, cool countenance of his sovereign.
"Dost not find mine eyes green?" she asked, and leaned a little forward in her chair.
"There is a glint of the verdure of England in them, your Majesty, and the sheen of the blue of her skies and her seas."
"And thou dost consider them, therefore, to be perfect for England's Queen?"
"God made your Majesty, and we daily thank Him for His abounding goodness and wisdom."
A faint blush stole into Elizabeth's cheeks, and the blue-green eyes danced. "Thou dost see merrie England mirrored in these pale orbs?"
"The country lives in your Majesty's heart, and the heart looks out through the eyes."
Elizabeth sat back. She turned to Raleigh.
"They breed poets in the shadow of Dean's oaks," she said.
"When first I met Master Morgan he was writing verses in the woodlands."
"And to whom?"
"A pretty maiden."
"Ah! What colour are her eyes, bold forester?"
"Blue, an't please your Majesty."
"It doth not please me at all. I thought thy conceit about the 'green and blue' of England very pretty and spontaneous for me. Now I perceive 'tis but an old compliment thou hast paid a thousand times before to some woodland wench."
"Your Majesty mistakes. The thought never came to my mind before I uttered it just now. I know not what made me think it then, unless 'twas your Majesty's presence inspired me. I am a dull fellow, and no poet, as Mistress Dawe often tells me."
"Hast never told her that her eyes are blue?"
"I have, your Majesty."
"And that she is the fairest maid on earth?"
"I have said that also, and 'tis God's truth that I think her to be so."
"Humph!"
The exclamation was a little unroyal. Raleigh, who had stood in almost mute astonishment at Morgan's strange readiness of tongue and aptness of expression, now began to fear that the blunt yeoman was going to undo all his previous good work. Elizabeth Tudor was not accustomed to hear that some other "maid" was the fairest on earth.
"When dost thou hope to wed this dainty nymph?"
"When the maid wills it, your Majesty."
"Hath she no father, then, to command her?"
"She hath; but he would not lay an order upon her, neither would I have him do so. Maidens will have their whims. I care not, so mine be constant."
"Thou dost find her wayward then?"
"All pretty things are fashioned so."
"Am I wayward, thinkest thou?"
"Your Majesty would be very woman but that you are also Queen."
"But I am a woman when my crown is off."
Johnnie shook his head. "God hath given your Majesty special graces, and such strength that the woman in you must obey the sovereign."
Elizabeth sighed. "Thou art right," she said. "Daily have I to beat the woman in me down, down. 'Tis hard to do it, for the woman will cry out for what is hers by nature. Canst thou not perceive, Master Morgan, that the struggle is bitter at times? Yet the woman in me must succumb; for, did she have her way, England, my England, would suffer."
"Therefore did God give the Queen strength," murmured Johnnie.
Elizabeth arose. "I will see thee again," she said. "Thou hast some homely mother wisdom, and a truthful tongue. It cheers a Queen's heart to learn that, far from courts and crowds, she hath valiant and loyal subjects like to thee. But I must ask thee to consider whether thou canst not serve us to more advantage than offers on a simple farm. Thou hast given a little brave blood for England. The world is wide, and our foes are many. Doth not thy spirit cry out for wings at times?"
"It hath in these last few days, your Majesty."
"Yes?"
"I have been talking with some sailor-men from the Spanish Main, and the sea sings in mine ears, sleeping and waking."
"Then obey the call."
"I will."
"God prosper you!"
"And bring your Majesty happiness and length of days."
Chapter XXIII.
JOHNNIE SEES MANY SIGHTS.
The Queen left the audience chamber in company with her maids-of-honour, and Raleigh held the curtains over the doorway aside for them to pass through. He came back to where Morgan was standing, and looked him quizzingly up and down.
"Upon my faith as a knight! thou, John Morgan, art the biggest packet of surprises I have yet brought within the gray walls of Whitehall Palace. They do say that the air of this place is peculiarly suitable for the breathing of west-country men. We thrive in it amazingly, to the chagrin of better men born elsewhere. But thou hast developed from close bud to full-blown flower in a single afternoon. Who cut the strings of thy tongue, and took the bands from thy wits? Thou didst speak like a ten years courtier at the least. I will confess that I hearkened to thee dumb with sheer amazement."
Johnnie rubbed his chin ruefully.
"I am sore afraid that my tongue hath undone me; yet, for the life of me, I could put no bridle upon it when once her Majesty had me by the eyes. She willed the words out of me. Bones o' me! I pray I may never have to face her with a secret locked in my bosom, and she suspicious that I kept something hidden. 'Twould out, like murder. But her spirit compelled mine as that of a strong man compelling a weaker."
"There hast thou solved the royal riddle of England's governance. We are swayed by the brain of a man behind the mask of woman's face. To the woman that we behold we pay that chivalrous deference and loving devotion that her sex and her station claim from true men; but when we would treat her like a woman, with womanly weaknesses, then peeps the man from behind the mask, and we kneel to one stronger than ourselves. The 'woman' that appeals to us, and cries for our love, is at times capricious as an April day. But the 'man' is ever firm and dominating, and with 'him' no one of us dares to trifle. Thy fortunate star shone o'er thee to-day. Few men have made so excellent a first impression on England's maiden Queen. But be not froward because of a first success, nor hope too much from a royal smile. The east wind can blow bitingly, even on a sunny day. Come with me now to the royal buffet; 'tis treason to quit this roof after a first visit without drinking a bumper to the sovereign's health. Her Majesty is a very country housewife in the matter of cakes and ale and clean sheets in the guest chamber."
Morgan quitted the audience chamber on Raleigh's arm, threaded numerous corridors, sumptuously curtained and carpeted, and came at last to a spacious room where, on a huge sideboard of carven oak, constant provision was maintained for bodily refreshment. Servants in royal livery stood about, and several gentlemen of the household, who had just been relieved from duty, or come in from running some royal errand, stood sipping a cup of wine. All saluted Raleigh courteously, and bowed ceremoniously to his companion. Johnnie returned the bow, feeling considerably less at ease than he had done in his sovereign's presence. The critical stare of so many resplendent gallants unnerved him, and he was heartily glad to quit the chamber and get out into the air of the courtyard. Raleigh escorted him to the palace gate, where Jeffreys awaited him. Captain Dawe had gone to look in at the bowling green, where some of the royal officers were playing bowls. Him they found; then, not caring for the walk back down Strand and Fleet Street, they went to Whitehall Stairs within the palace precincts, hailed a wherry, and went down on the tide to the stairs at Blackfriars. The sun was setting when they landed, and columns of smoke rising from a score of points showed that the city watchmen were lighting the evening purifying fires at street corners and in the open spaces. The air on the river had been cool and pleasant enough, but it was stifling in the narrow lanes leading up from the stream to the hill of St. Paul's. The pungent smoke from the newly-kindled wood piles came quite refreshingly to the nostrils.
"We have had a most fortunate year in London," said Master Jeffreys. "No case of plague, and very few of fever. The aldermen of the wards were for stopping these fires a week ago, but the bishop resolved to keep them going within his boundaries until October set in. 'Tis wonderful how the smoke and flames do take the noisome vapour from the air. If we could but get some good rains now to wash out the gutters and conduits, the city would be cleansed and sweetened for the winter."
"For my part," answered the forester, "I should always breathe but chokingly in these streets."
"Oh, the air is wholesome enough," said Jeffreys "and stout fellows thrive on it. Just give an eye to yonder band of 'prentice lads. I would not wish to see better limbs, and I'll warrant that no forest-bred lad can give harder thwacks with oaken cudgel than can these retailers of ribbons and fal-lals."
"The rogues are hearty enough," assented Johnnie, "and their lungs are like bellows of leather. London is a fine place, and the air, doubtless, sweet enough to those who have not the lingering fragrance of the bracken in their nostrils. The scent of the woods or the salt of the sea for me."
"And the salt of the sea is the sweeter. Ah!" Master Jeffreys sniffed longingly.
Chepe was pretty full of leisurely pedestrians; the doorways of the taverns were crowded; jugglers balanced themselves in the dusty gutter, and merry maidens tripped it neatly in the inn courtyards to the sound of pipe and tabor. The merchants' parlours over their shops were often the scene of a friendly or family gathering, and more than one sweetly-sung madrigal floated harmoniously out on the evening air. Elizabethan London was a musical city, and part-singing was cultivated beneath the rooftree of every well-to-do burgher. The fresh voices of the young girls and the mellower notes of journeyman or apprentice mingled tunefully together. The great city was resting from the labours of the day, and soothing its spirit to enjoy the deeper rest and tranquillity of the night. There was a little horseplay amongst the lads gathered round the tumblers and tavern doors, but it hardly disturbed the calm peacefulness of the scene. The side streets were practically deserted, Chepe and St. Paul's Churchyard being the fashionable promenades. Not a solitary figure blotted the narrow vista of Wood Street when the three friends turned their wearied legs into it. They found "Ye Swanne" in charge of the tapster and the serving-wench, and with Paignton Rob for its solitary guest. He hailed his hosts of the previous day with delight, and hastened to inform them that Dame Fortune was "smiling upon him with both eyes." Whilst lounging in the aisles of St. Paul's he had been recognized by a Dartmouth skipper under whom he had once crossed the Atlantic on a piratical expedition against Spain. The venture had failed, and the golden visions dangled before Rob's eyes had vanished. But the Dartmouth captain had tried again, and had been eminently successful, bringing home a shipload of rich booty. Hearing Rob's story of Oxenham's expedition, and seeing for himself the marks of Spanish cruelty on the seaman's body, the generous skipper had made Rob a present of ten crowns, and had also given the Johnsons--whom he had never seen before--a couple of crowns apiece, and offered all three a berth aboard his ship, which was leaving for Dartmouth on the next morning's tide. The Johnsons had accepted, but Rob had declined, being resolved to see Raleigh and some other gentlemen adventurers concerning his plans for a recovery of Oxenham's buried treasure.
"And now," added the sailor, "I owe ye a debt of hospitality, and am come hither to pay it. The tapster hath my orders, and ye will not refuse to take bite and sup with me this night."
Not one of the company said "Nay," for Rob was evidently bent upon playing the host. But Captain Dawe asked where his daughter and Mistress Stowe had hidden themselves, and got for answer the tidings that they had gone out into the Moorfields to take the air and see an archery contest, the heat in the city having been well-nigh intolerable that afternoon.
The twilight was growing faint, the narrow street was in semi-darkness. Johnnie inquired which way the ladies would return, and getting the direction started out to meet them and give them escort. He had not gone far before he saw two ladies hurrying along, huddled rather closely together, and a couple of city gallants bowing and smirking beside them in the roadway. The young fellow's face flushed; for, even in the growing darkness, he recognized one slight, graceful figure as that of Dorothy. He hastened forward, and soon got near enough to distinguish the faces of the four, and to perceive that the ladies were being annoyed by the unwelcome attentions of the two fops, who, attracted doubtless by Dolly's beauty and apparent rusticity, were endeavouring to force acquaintance upon the buxom hostess of the "Swanne." Johnnie seized both the situation and the offenders in a moment. Grasping the youths by the nape of the neck, he cracked their curled heads together until they yelled with pain. Then he forced their noses down to their knees.
"Bow low, ye rascals," he cried. "Lower still; ye are not doing sufficient homage to beauty and innocence yet."
The two collapsed, toppled forward, and lay prone on their stomachs in the thick, foul dust.
"Kiss the ground they walk on," pursued the relentless Johnnie; "'tis what ye mouthing apes profess to do. Kiss it--let me hear ye," and he held them in his grip until two resounding smacks rewarded his efforts. "Now," he said, "maybe ye will not annoy womenfolk again for an evening or two. I'll lout the heads of both of you together if I see your smirking faces in this street any more."
The forester straightened himself, offered an arm to each of the ladies, and led them home.
Lights shone from the parlour window of "Ye Swanne" that night long after they were douted in the other houses of Wood Street. Johnnie had to recount all the incidents of his visit to the court; and Dorothy and the hostess asked him a hundred questions about the Queen, many of them concerning her dress and her jewels, and quite beyond his powers of answering. He said nothing about the promise given to his sovereign in a moment of loyal enthusiasm, a promise that pledged him to voyage and adventure on the Spanish Main.
"Time enough for that," he said to himself. "I'll talk at greater length to Bob to-morrow; and as no ships will be sailing westward ho! until the spring comes again, I may as well leave talking for a later day, and make my plans now in silence."
The party from the forest spent another week in London, and during that time Johnnie went twice to Whitehall, on the second occasion taking Dorothy with him. The Queen was very gracious to her pretty subject from the west, and praised her beauty openly. Yet, in spite of the royal condescension, Dolly felt terribly afraid, and owned to Raleigh that she was very glad to get outside the palace doors again.
On another day the knight took them to the play on the other side of the river, where they saw a comedy of Ben Jonson's. After the play the captain went to see the bear-baiting in the bear-pit hard by, but the two young people preferred a trip on the river as far as Chelsea. This was a very busy and momentous day, for in the evening Master Jeffreys took Morgan down to the "Mermaid Tavern" between Wood Street and Milk Street, where Raleigh was presiding over a gathering of the "Mermaid Club," and there the young countryman found himself in a very nest of poets--Shakespeare, Jonson, Marlowe, Sidney, and Raleigh himself. In after years he hardly knew which to call the most notable moment in his life--the one when he kissed his Queen's hand, or the one when he drank a cup of sack with the greatest wits and geniuses of his age.
When the Severn-side folks went westwards again, Paignton Rob accompanied them; for Johnnie had invited the mariner to make his home with him during the winter, purposing in the spring to go with him on a first voyage to the New World.
Chapter XXIV.
TWO CHANCE WAYFARERS.
It was the feast of St. Thomas, the sky gray blue, with a pale, cold-looking sun, the Queen's highway frozen into an iron hardness, and the pools and ditches frost-bound. The wind had shaken the hoar from the trees and hedges, and the holly-berries stood out in brilliant bunches against the dark green of the encircling leaves. Along the road between Bristol and Gloucester, and, but for the wintry haze that narrowed the horizon, within sight of the latter city, trudged a burly fellow, staff in hand and a sea song on his lips. His thick shoon awoke echoes from hedge to hedge, and his iron-shod staff rang in unison. Hosen of warm, gray homespun covered his legs, and he had a doublet of the same goodly stuff; a cap, trimmed with otter-skin, was pulled down tightly over his ears, and an ample cloak of somewhat gaudy blue flapped in the keen wind; rime, and tiny beads of frozen vapour, hung like pearls in his black beard. He rolled in his walk as a sailor should, and sometimes he whistled the air of his song by way of change from the singing of the words.
"Then ho! for the Spanish Main, And ha! for the Spanish gold; King Philip's ships are riding deep With the weight of wealth untold. They're prey for the saucy lads Who dance on the Plymouth Hoe; They'll all sail home thro' the fleecy foam, With a rich galleon in tow-tow-tow, With a rich galleon in tow!"
The mariner swung his staff in rhythm with the swing of his chorus, and his hearty voice pealed out like a trumpet on the sharp air.
"A spirited song well sung!" cried a voice in the sailor's rear.
He turned sharply around, and found a thin, wiry fellow close at his heels. "Madre de Dios!" he cried, with a Spanish oath. "Where didst thou spring from? I heard no steps behind me."
"Hardly possible, friend, that thou shouldst hear a little fellow like me against thy song, staff, and heavier footfalls. I fell in thy wake out of the lane at Quedgely, and have been trying to come up with thee for the sake of thy jolly company."
"Is yonder parcel of huts Quedgely?"
"Ay. Thou art a stranger; Devon, if thy speech is to be trusted."
"Devon is my bonny country, lad--Devon every inch of me. Dost know Devon?"
"But little. 'Tis a brave shire, and breeds brave sons. Could I be born again, I'd pray to see the sun first from a Devon cradle."
"Thy hand, brother. If thou wert less yellow in the gills I'd kiss thee. Art for Gloucester?"
"I am."
"So am I, for to-day; to-morrow I go farther on. Dost know these parts well?"
"There are parts that I know worse; but I am not native to the place."
"Maybe thou hast never been in Dean Forest?"
The stranger looked at the sailor sharply and queerly. "Dean Forest," he repeated. "Yes, I have travelled some parts of that wild region. Thou art surely not thinking of going thither at this time o' the year!"
"By bad fortune, I am. And from what I hear, 'tis a dangerous place, full of fierce beasts and uncouth people. But go thither I must, for I seek a man I shall not find elsewhere. If thou wouldst find a hawk, needs must that thou find a hawk's nest; no other bird's will serve thy purpose--that is my position. Is there any chance that I shall light upon some forest fellow during Yule-tide business in Gloucester?"
"That I cannot say; but I may be able to help thee. Whom dost thou seek?"
"A Devon man, Rob of Paignton."
"Thou art hunting a bundle of hay to find a needle. The forest is a wild place, as full of holes as of hills, and its people are not much given to travelling or to gossip with any but their nearest neighbours. Hast no more precise knowledge?"
"None, except that Rob dwells with a tall fellow named Morgan."
Again the sallow stranger eyed his companion keenly. He shook his head. "Tall fellows are not scarce amongst the foresters, and Morgans are as plentiful as oak trees."
"Then am I like to be long a-searching. However, tired eyes ne'er found a treasure; I must find Rob and the fellow with whom he dwells. How far is it to Gloucester now?"
"A matter of less than three miles to the Cross."
"Dost know of a good inn, one where beef and ale is not stinted, and where the hay in the beds is sweet?"
"There's the 'New Inn' in the Northgate Street, as snug a place as a man can wish to put head into on a cold day. I shall rest there until to-morrow."
"Then I'll cast anchor there also. I can afford to pay for good lodgings." The sailor jingled some coins in his pouch, and sang again,
"Then ho! for the Spanish Main, And ha! for the Spanish gold."
His companion interrupted him. "When I startled thee just now, did I not hear thy lips utter a Spanish oath?"
"Likely enough; I have a goodly stock of them, and one jumps out at times if it happens to be near the top. How didst thou recognize it for Spanish?"
"Because I have some knowledge of that tongue."
The sailor turned sharp on the speaker, halted, and scrutinized him closely. "Thy face is yellow enough for a subject of King Philip," he said slowly; "but the general cut of thee is English."
"I am English."
"Hast sailed the Spanish Main?"
"No; I am a scholar, not a sailor. I am as well acquainted with French, Latin, and Greek as with Spanish and English."
"What a gift!" exclaimed the sailor admiringly. "There is not much body about thee; but now I look into thy face and mark thine eyes, forehead, and jowl, can well credit thee with brains. I wish I had met thee in Plymouth."
"Why, friend?"
"Because I have some papers writ in Spanish that I'd give much to decipher. Confidence for confidence, let me tell thee that I am no scholar, but just a simple sailor--"
"Who knows the Spanish Main, eh?"
"As a farmer knows his own duck pond."
"Ah! these are fine times for the brave lads who sail the seas."
"My own opinion, brother. I thank God I became a man whilst Queen Bess was a woman! The west wind blows fortunes into Devon ports nowadays. Mayhap thou hast no love for the sea?"
"'Tis the sea that hath no love for me. I am fixed ashore, and yet I love travel and adventure, and have seen sights in more lands than England."
"So! now. I'm glad thou hast not lived a worm 'twixt book covers. Thou art a fellow of some parts, I'll warrant me. There's plenty of spring in thy walk for one who hath pored much over books. How art thou now with, say, the sword?"
"I have held my own with fellows of more inches than myself."
The sailor pinched his companion's biceps, and took a grip of his wrist. "Supple enough, brother, or I'm no judge."
"Oh! I should second thee well in a tussle, never fear," laughed the little man.
"And give me a merry time should we draw on one another."
"Oh! we are not going to fight. I am a peaceable wayfarer, glad of a cheery companion on a dull day. But I would offer thee a scrap of advice. Jingle not thy money so easily to the first man that offers thee a friendly greeting. I have known the chink of gold turn a good friend into an ill foe."
"True, true. But I'll swear to thy honesty."
"A thousand thanks for the compliment."
Thus the two chance companions trudged on side by side to the south gate of Gloucester. There the pressure of a crowd brought them to a halt for a few minutes. There was a noise of yelling and booing, and some exclamations that caused the sailor's companion to wince.
The pressure at the gate slackening, the two pushed through and hurried after the noisy throng. "Some fellow being whipped at the cart-tail," exclaimed the man of Devon, stretching his tall form to look over the heads of the swaying mob.
"Two of 'em, friend; Papishers both," remarked a delighted citizen.
"Oh!" exclaimed the younger wayfarer.
The citizen pointed first to the right and then to the left. "Ruins of Greyfriars Monastery; ruins of Blackfriars. One rascal caught in either place praying that the doom of Sodom and Gomorrah might fall on our town, because he and his fellow vermin were driven out years ago. I must push ahead and beg the hangman to let me have a cut or two at them. They cursed me by bell, book, and candle--but not by name, thank the Lord: they didn't know that!"
"Why?" asked the little man.
"Because I--and many others, for the matter of that--have built a snug house out of the stone of the monasteries. I'll have a cut at 'em if it costs me a crown."
"Is this sort of thing to thy liking?" the sailor asked of his companion.
"No," was the sharp response.
"Neither is it to mine; although, mind you, I have seen these same Papishers play some devil's tricks on good Protestants. Paignton Rob, whom I seek, hath a head ill-balanced by the loss of an ear and its ear-ring, because the priests chose to set a mark upon him. But thou and I are of more generous blood; we have seen the world, and found honest men in all religions--ay, and rogues in them all too. Let us get to thine inn and drink a flagon of Gloster ale to all tolerant souls, whether they call the Pope 'Father' or 'Devil.'"
The sallow-faced man made no answer, but pushed on beside his burly companion.
Chapter XXV.
BROTHER BASIL.
Dan Pengelly, the sailor with the Cornish patronymic and Devonian birthplace, found an excellent boon companion in the little sallow-faced fellow who had overtaken him a few miles south of Gloucester. And he found the "New Inn," boastful of having given a night's lodging to the Queen and the Earl of Leicester, an expensive but comfortable tavern. Its dimensions were goodly, its position a sheltered one, its kitchens ample and well-managed, and its October ale beyond reproach. At first the little man in black doublet and hosen was inclined to be moody and taciturn; the public whipping, apparently, had seared his kindly and humane temperament. But jolly Dan poured oil--not to say ale--on the wounds and eased them. As it was neither dinner-time nor supper-time, the sailor ordered a repast ample enough for both, and fell to his trencher with hearty good will. His companion did his best to emulate him, and for a spare man did excellently. Dan paid the reckoning.
They spent a merry evening. As far as the sailor was concerned, when ale went in, wit went out; he poured out confidences, and was artfully led into babbling secrets he had never intended to disclose. To all appearances the little man was just as communicative; he talked glibly enough about places in France, Holland, and Spain, and answered a score of eager questions about Antwerp, Amsterdam, Paris, Lisbon, Cadiz, and other places. But when Pengelly reeled off to his mattress of fragrant hay he knew nothing definite about his comrade--neither name, station, occupation, nor religious or political opinions. On the other hand, the sallow man knew Dan's lineage for four generations back, at least; knew his hopes, fears, recent deeds--good and bad; could have told to a penny what money he had in his pocket; knew the reason why he sought Rob of Paignton, and a great deal of the latter worthy's past career. Perhaps most important of all, he knew where Dan had hidden certain Spanish papers in Plymouth, and guessed at the secret hidden in them. He had been merry with the bluff sailor to good purpose, and he lay awake and quietly smiling at a star that peeped in at the lattice, long after the bibulous Dan had started snoring like a drenched hog on the pallet beside him. Before he closed his eyes and settled himself to sleep, he had resolved to be the sailor's companion for a day longer. This meant an alteration of his previous plans, but the change would be worth the making.
The next morning the two travellers were astir with the first robin, and over breakfast Dan learned that his companion had suddenly remembered that he ought to pay a visit to Westbury before he quitted the neighbourhood. The Devonian knew nothing of Westbury, but was speedily informed that it lay about ten miles along his own route, and was, in fact, almost at the eastern verge of the forest itself. The sailor expressed his joy at this news in a practical manner; he insisted on paying the reckoning for bed and breakfast. The little man made a show of protest, but submitted amicably enough. The generous Dan slapped him on the back, and declared that he was growing to love him.
"I did not like thee over well at first," he said; "there are none of the roses of innocence in thy face, thy jaws are too lean and hungry looking, and thine eyes have an odd sort of stare in them. But 'handsome is that handsome does' is my motto, and I find thee a downright pretty fellow."
The "pretty fellow" laughed good-humouredly. "Thou hast queer ways of paying compliments, Dan Pengelly, and folk who did not understand thee might take offence. But it's 'peace and good fellowship' betwixt us twain; so let us take to the road and hope for a pleasant journey."
The sun shone frostily but cheerily. Down the Westgate Street and out at the West Gate that abutted on the turbid Severn went the two strangely assorted comrades. The sailor had a remark or two--not altogether complimentary--to make about the river. Then they strode along the causeway that spanned the marshy isle of Olney and led to the western arm of the river. From thence a broad, tree-bordered highway ran--at a little distance from the Severn bank--right away to the hamlet of Westbury. Here they parted company, the sailor going on to Newnham, where he was to make inquiries after Rob, his companion striking off across the fields on pretence of visiting a certain farmer.
Dan was right on the track of his friend, although he anticipated a dangerous and exciting search through the dense, dark forest that rose on the swelling hills before him. He was agreeably disappointed. A grizzled old fisherman stood on the river quay idly watching his boat as it bobbed up and down on the rushing tide. Dan gave him a brotherly greeting, then halted for a few minutes' rest and conversation. At first the traveller talked of "tides" as though they were his chief interest in life. The fisherman had an opportunity of learning that the tides of the Plym, Fal, and Dart were beyond computation better than those of the Severn; in fact, he was asked to believe that the last-named river was no better than a mud heap that got flooded with brackish water twice a day. The fisherman stoutly combated this slander, and a pretty quarrel seemed imminent, when Dan went off at a tangent, and "wondered" whether any one in Newnham had espied a tall, lean, one-eared man looking at boat or stream at any time. "He's not a native of these parts," added he, by way of rounding off his description.
But the fisherman was not prepared for this sudden change of subject, and he took a minute or two for quiet meditation ere he volunteered the information that "all Newnham" knew the person in question.
"He was up to Captain Dawe's but yesterday," he said.
"Ought to be dwelling with a tall fellow named Morgan," said Dan.
"Lives with Johnnie Morgan of Blakeney," replied the other. "Everybody knows Johnnie Morgan. He's kissed the Queen's hand in her house in London, and 'tis whispered that her Majesty kissed him. At any rate, Johnnie's sweetheart quarrelled with him directly they got home again, and the gossips put it down to jealousy."
Dan expressed his sorrow, and promised to advise Johnnie to hope for a happy ending. "The course of true love never did run smooth, ye know."
"Never!" assented the fisherman.
"Now, how far is it to Blakeney, and must I go through the forest?"
"'Tis an afternoon's tramp, and a lonesome one; ye might run down on the tide when it ebbs. There's my boat, and I'll take ye for twopence."
"Done! Shall we spill a flagon of ale, and say it is a bargain?"
The fisherman put his tongue to his lips and tested the salty flavour of the tide, then led the way without comment to the "Bear." The bargain was so deluged with "best October" that it was almost drowned in forgetfulness. But, more by luck than judgment, Dan and Rob kissed one another just after nightfall.
And after supper Dan told the story of his tramp from Bristol. He had got to the "whipping" incident in Gloucester, and was describing its effect upon the little, sallow-faced fellow that tramped with him, when one of Morgan's men burst into the room, his face blanched with terror. "The man in black! the man in black!" he cried.
Johnnie was on his feet in an instant. "What dost thou mean?" he asked.
"The man in black! the one who did not die!"
Johnnie understood. He took down a sword. "Where is he?"
"He was looking in at the window as I came up the lane."
"Follow me. Stay you there, gentlemen; I'm afeard my man has seen a ghost."
Blakeney was aroused, but no man had seen anything suspicious, and a close search revealed nothing. Morgan questioned his man, but he stuck to his story. An idea flashed across Johnnie's mind, and when he got home again he questioned Pengelly closely about his companion. The answers convinced him.
"Thou hast tramped with the devil in disguise," he said.
Dan's ruddy face paled, and he asked for an explanation. His host told him of the events of the past summer. The sailor's face lengthened with the story. "And I told him all my plans!" he groaned.
That night Morgan's barns were fired and burned to the ground. The next night the thatch of Captain Dawe's cottage was discovered to be smouldering. Two nights later, Dean Tower, which had been confiscated by the Crown because of Windybank's treason, was reduced to a heap of ashes.
Brother Basil stole out of Westbury tower the next morning. He had a bloodstained chip of oak in his hand. It was cut from a beam Windybank had struck in his fall. "The blood of a martyr!" he muttered.