To the Isle of Wight, and thence to Spithead and Deptford, came in time the Sybil of forty-four guns, Captain Charles Winterton, and accompanying her, in the hands of a prize crew, the Rose of Devon frigate. There, bundling certain unhappy gentlemen of fortune out of the ship, they sent them expeditiously up to London and deposited them for safe keeping in the Marshalsea prison, a notable hostelry which has harboured great rogues before and since.
In the fullness of time, the Lord High Admiral of England, "who holds his court of justice for trials of all sea causes for life and goods," being assisted by the Judge of Admiralty and sundry others, officers and advocates and proctors and civilians, was moved to proceed against the aforesaid gentlemen of fortune. So they heard their names cried in the High Court of Admiralty and were arraigned for piracy and robbery on the high seas and charged with seizing the frigate Rose of Devon, the property of Thomas Ball and others, and murdering her master, Francis Candle, and stealing supplies and equipment to the value of eight hundred pounds. Nor was that the whole tale of charges, for it seemed that the Lords of Admiralty laid to the discredit of those particular gentlemen of fortune numerous earlier misdeeds of great daring and wickedness and an attempt to take His Majesty's ship Sybil, which had cost the lives of certain of His Majesty's seamen and had occasioned His Majesty much grief and concern.
He who read the indictment spoke in a loud and solemn voice, such as might of itself make a man think of his sins and fear judgment; but they were already cowed and fearful, save only the Old One, who still held his head high and very scornfully smiled. The cook bent his head and shivered and dared not look the jury in the face. The carpenter wept and Martin Barwick was like a man struck dumb and Paul Craig kept working his mouth and biting at his lips.
There was a great concourse of people, for who would not seize upon the chance to see a band of pirates? But a very poor show the pirates made, save the Old One; for though they had talked much and often of their valour and had represented themselves as tall fellows who feared nothing in life or death, they were now and for all time revealed as cowards to the marrow of their bones.
Quietly and expeditiously the officers of the Court swore their first witness, who smelled of pitch and tar and bore himself in such wise that he was to be known for a sailor wherever he might turn.
To their questions he replied with easy assurance, for he was not one of those fellows who cope with great gales and storms at sea only to be cowed by a great person on land. "Yea, sir," quoth he, "there is among mariners common talk of a band of sea sharks that hath long resorted to His Majesty's port of Bideford. Yea, my lord.—And have I met with them? That I have, and to my sorrow. This month two years I was master in a likely snow, the Prosperous of three hundred tons, which fell afoul of that very company, as their boasting and talk discovered to us, who took our ship and set me adrift in a boat with seven of mine own men, whereby, God being merciful unto us, we succeeded after many hardships in winning to the shore of Ireland, whence the Grace of Bristol bore us home to England.—The fate of the others in our company? In faith, some, I am told, joined themselves with that same band of sea sharks. The rest were slaughtered out of hand.—Nay, my lord, the night was black and my sight of the scoundrels was brief. I much misdoubt if I should know them again."
"Come, come," quoth His Lordship, tapping the papers spread on his great table, "look at these prisoners gathered here at the bar and tell me if there be one among them of whom you can say, 'This man was there; this man did thus and so.'"
So the witness came, with the air of a man who is pleased to be seen of many people, and looked them over, one and all; but at the end of his looking he sadly shook his head. "Nay, my lord, the night was dark and sight was uncertain; and though I should rejoice—none more than I!—to see a pirate hanged, I am most loath to swear away the life of an innocent man. There is no man here of whom I can truly say I have seen him before."
His Lordship frowned and the proctors shook their heads; the prisoners sighed and breathed more freely. The tale was at an end, and bearing away with him his smell of pitch and tar the fellow returned to his place.
Four witnesses were then summoned, one after another, and told tales like the first. One had been in a ship that was seized and sunk in Bristol Channel; the second had received a gaping wound in the shoulder off St. David's Head, and had known no more until he found himself alone on the deck of a plundered flyboat; the third had fallen into evil company in Plymouth, which beat him and robbed him and left him for dead, and from the talk of his murderous companions he had learned, before they set upon him that they were certain gentry of Bideford; and the last of the four told of the murderous attack of a boarding party, which had taken a brig and tumbled him over the side into a boat. "Yea, my lord," he cried, "and I fear to think upon what befell our captain's little son, for of all our crew only three men were left alive and as they sailed away from us three we heard the boy shrieking pitifully." One by one the witnesses wove with their tales a black net of wickedness, but they could not or would not say they knew this prisoner or that.
The Judge frowned darkly from his bench and the people in the seats opened their mouths in wonder and excitement at the stories of robbery and murder. But the net was woven loosely and without knots, for thus far there had been no one to pick out this man or that and say, "It was he who did it." So the cook and the carpenter took heart; and the colour returned to Martin Barwick's face; and the Old One, leaning back, still smiled scornfully. Yet the Judge and the advocates seemed in no way discouraged, from which the men of the Rose of Devon might have drawn certain conclusions; for as all the world knows, judges and advocates with a band of pirates under the thumb are, for the honour of the law, set upon making an example of them.
There was long counselling in whispers, then a bustle and stir, and an officer cried loudly, "Come, make haste and lead her in."
A murmur passed over the court and the people turned their heads to look for the meaning of the cry. Then a door opened and an officer appeared, leading by the arm a very old woman.
Phil Marsham felt his heart leap up; he saw Martin raise his hand to his throat with a look of horror. But when he stole a glance at the Old One, he saw, to his wonder, that the Old One was smiling as calmly as before: truly the man was a marvel of unconcern and a very cool and desperate rascal.
"Is this the woman?" quoth my Lord the Judge, who raised his head and lifted his brows to see her the better.
"Yea, my lord."
"Hm! Let us look into this matter!" There was silence in the room except for the sound of shuffling papers. "This woman, commonly known as Mother Taylor, is to be hanged this day sennight, I believe."
"Yea, my lord."
"And it hath been suggested that if she can lay before us such evidence as is needful, she will be commended to the King's mercy and doubtless reprieved from the gallows. Hath all this been made plain and clear to her?"
"Yea, my lord."
"Hm! It appears by these papers, woman, that keeping a house to which rogues of all descriptions have resorted is the least of your crimes."
A strange, cracked old voice burst shrilly upon the still court. "'Tis a lie, my lord! Alas, my lord, that wicked lies should take away my good name, and I tottering on the edge of the grave!"
There were cries of "Silence!" And the officer at the old woman's side shook her by the arm.
"And to continue from the least to the greatest, you have disposed of all manner of stolen goods, and have prepared slow poisons to be sold at a great price and have stained your hands with murder."
"Alas, my lord, it is a wicked lie—!"
They shook her into silence, but her lips continued to move, and as she stood between the officers her sharp little eyes ranged about the court.
There was further counselling among the proctors, then one cried sharply, "Come, old woman, remember that the hangman is ready to don his gown, and answer me truly before it is too late: on such and such a day you were at your house in Bideford, were you not?"
"Nay, sir, I am old and my wits are not all they were once and I cannot remember as I ought."
"Come, now, on such a day, did not a certain man come to your house in Bideford and abide there the night?"
"It may be—it may be—for one who keepeth a tavern hath many guests."
"Look about you, old woman, and tell us if you see the man."
"Nay, good sir, my wits wander and I do not remember as I used."
As Philip Marsham watched her hard face, so very old and crafty, he paid little heed to the low voices of the proctors and the Judge. But the sharp command, "Look this man in the face and tell us if you have ever seen him before," came to the erstwhile boatswain of the Rose of Devon like the shock of cold water to a man lying asleep.
They led her before Tom Jordan—before the Old One himself—and the two looked each other full in the face, yet neither fluttered an eye. In all truth they were a cool pair; it had taken a Solomon to say which of them was now the subtler.
"Nay, my lord, how should I know this man? He hath the look of an honest fellow, my lord, but I never saw him ere this."
Thereupon the officers exchanged glances and the proctors whispered together.
They led her before Martin Barwick and again she shook her old white head. "Nay, my lord, I know him not." But Martin was swallowing hard, as if some kind of pip had beset him, and this did not escape the notice of the Court.
Down the line of accused men she came and, though she walked in the shadow of the gallows, she said of each, in her shrill, quavering old voice, "Nay, my lord, I know him not."
Of some she spoke thus in all truth; of others, though she knew it would cost her life, she craftily and stoutly lied. And at last she came to Philip Marsham, whose heart chilled when he met the sharp eyes that had looked so hard into his own in Bideford long before. "Nay, my lord, he is a handsome blade, but I never saw him ere this." Some smiled and sniggered; but the old woman shrugged, and lifted her brows, and stood before the Court, wrinkled and bent by years of wickedness. Say what you will of her sins, her courage and loyalty were worthy of a better cause.
In despair of pinning her down, they led her away at last to a bench and there she sat with officers to guard her. Now she watched one man and now she watched another. Often Philip Marsham felt a tremor, almost of fear, at seeing her eyes looking hard into his own. But though of the old woman the Court had made nothing, the exultation that showed in the faces of some of the prisoners was premature, for the Lords of Admiralty had other shafts to their bow, as any gentleman of fortune might have known they would.
Again there was a stir among the ushers, and in the door appeared one at whose coming Tom Jordan ceased to smile.
The fellow's chin sagged and his eyes were wild and he ducked to His Lordship as if some one had pulled a string; and when they called on him to give the Court his name he cried very tremulously, "Yea, yea! Joseph Kirk, an it please you, my lord!"
"Come now, look about you at these men who are arraigned for piracy. Are there any there whom you have seen elsewhere?"
"Yea, yea, that there be! There! And there! And there!"
"Ah! Hm! Men you have seen elsewhere! Tell us who they are." And His Lordship smiled dryly.
"It is not to count against me, my lord? I have repented—yea, I have repented! 'Twill not undo the King's pardon?"
The very Judge on the bench gave a grunt as in disgust of the abject terror the fellow showed, and a murmur of impatience went through the room; but though he afforded a spectacle for contempt, they reassured him and urged him on.
"Yea, yea! That one there—he at the end—was our captain, and Tom Jordan his name. It was he who led us against a vast number of prizes, which yielded rich profit. It was he and Harry Malcolm—why, Harry Malcolm is not here. Huh! 'Tis passing strange! He hath so often stole beside them, I had thought he would hang beside them too. Yea, and as I was saying—Let us consider! Yea, yea, it was he and Harry Malcolm who contrived the plan for killing Captain Candle and taking the Rose of Devon. Yea, they called me apart on the forecastle and tempted me to sin and forced me with many threats. He it was—"
Tom Jordan was on his feet. "You lie in your throat, you drunken dog! It was you who struck him down with your own hand!"
"Nay, nay! I did him no harm! It was another—I swear it was another!"
"It seems," said His Lordship, when they had thrust Tom Jordan back in his seat and had somewhat abated their witness's terror of his one-time chief, "it seems this fellow's words have touched a sore. Go on."
"And there is Martin Barwick—nay, hold him! Nay, if I am to go on, I must have protection!—and there Paul Craig and there our boatswain, Philip Marsham—" And so he continued to name the men and told a tale of shameful acts and crimes for the least of which a man is hanged. Indeed, Philip Marsham himself knew enough of their history to send them one and all to the gallows, but he had not heard a tenth part of the story of piracy and robbery and murder and black crimes unfit for the printed page that this renegade pirate told to the full Court of Admiralty. The fellow made a great story of it, yet kept within a bowshot of the truth; but he was a villain of mean spirit and, though he did for the Court the work it desired, he bought his life at cost of whatever honour he may have had left.
And then came Captain Charles Winterton, who rose, bowing in stately wise to His Lordship, and with a composed air and an assured voice very quietly drew tight the purse-strings of the net that Joe Kirk had knotted. In his grand and dignified manner he bowed now and then to His Lordship and to the proctors, who asked him questions with a deference in their bearing very different from their way with the other witnesses.
"Yea, these pirate rogues boarded His Majesty's ship Sybil and killed three of His Majesty's men before they perceived the blunder they had made and gave themselves up.—How many lives did the boarders lose? Probably twelve or fourteen. Several bodies fell into the water and were not recovered. It was useless to hunt for them, my lord. Great sharks abound in those waters.—Yea, this Thomas Jordan led them in person. In truth, there is little distinction between them in the matter of guilt. The man Marsham, whom the previous witness named a boatswain, was the first to board the Sybil. He entered the great cabin by way of the stem, apparently to spy out the situation on board. He declared himself a forced man who had run away from the pirates. Who could say? The situation in which he was taken was such, certainly, as to incriminate him; though 'twere cause for sorrow, since he was a brave lad and had given no trouble during the voyage home."
There was a great whispering among the people, who thought it was a shame for so likely a lad to hang with a pack of pirates. But it was plain by now to the greatest dullard among those unhappy gentlemen of fortune that hang they must; and for Philip Marsham, who sat as white as death from the shame of it, there was no slightest spark of hope. The net was woven and knotted and drawn, and the end of it all was at hand.
When, according to the custom of the time, they called on Tom Jordan for his defense, he rose and said, "Alas, my lord, the ropes are laid that shall hang me. Already my neck aches. This, though, I will say: whatever these poor men have done, it is I that compelled them into it, and I, my lord, will stand to answer for it."
Some gave one defense and some another; and meanwhile there was much legal talk, dry and long and hard to understand. And so at last they called on Philip Marsham to rise and speak for himself if he had anything to say in his own defense.
He rose and stood before them, very white of face, and though his voice trembled, which was a thing to be expected since he saw before him a shameful death, he told them his true story, beginning with the day he sailed from Bideford, very much as I have told it here. But when they asked him about affairs on board the Rose of Devon that concerned the others and not him, he replied that each man must tell his own tale and that though he swung for it he must leave the others to answer those questions for themselves.
"Come," quoth His Lordship, leaning forward and sharply tapping his table, "you have heard the question asked. Remember, young man, that you stand in a place exceeding slippery. It shall profit you nothing to hold your peace."
"My lord," said he, "the tale hath been told in full. There is no need that I add to it, and were I to speak further I should but carry with me to the grave the thought that I had done a treacherous thing. Though I owe these men for nought save hard usage, yet have I eaten their bread and drunk their wine, and I will not, despite their sins, help to hang them."
It was doubtless very wrong for him to reply thus, as any moralist will point out, since it is a man's duty to help enforce the laws by bringing criminals to justice. But he answered according to his own conscience; and after the craven talk of Joseph Kirk, the lad's frank and honest statement pleased perhaps even my Lord the Judge, sitting high above the court, who frowned because his position demanded frowns. Surely loyalty ranks high among the virtues and great credit is due to a keen sense of personal honour. But there then came from his talk a result that neither he nor any other had foreseen.
Up sprang Tom Jordan. "My lord," he cried, "I pray thee for leave to speak!"
To the frowns and chidings of the officers who forced him down again, he paid no heed. A tumult rose in the room, for they had hurled the Old One back and clapped hands over his mouth; but out of the struggle came again the cry, "My lord! My lord!" and His Lordship, calling in a loud voice for order and silence, scowled and gave him the leave he asked.
As Martin had said long before, Tom Jordan was an ugly customer when his temper was up and hot, but no man to nurse a grudge.
"I thank you, my lord," said he, the while smoothing his coat, which had wrinkled sadly in the scuffle. "Though I must hang I desire to see justice done. It lay in the power of this Philip Marsham to have added to the tale of our sins and the sum of our woes; wherefore, since he hath had the spirit to refrain from doing thus, why, my lord, I needs must say that he hath spoken only the truth. He was a forced man, and having a liking for him, since he is a lad of spirit, I would have had him join us heart and soul. 'Tis true likewise that he ran away from our ship and turned his hand against us, and for that I would have let him hang with these other tall fellows but for the brave spirit he hath shown. But as for yonder swine—yea, thou, Joe Kirk! Quake and stare!—he hath done more mean, filthy tricks to earn a hanging than any other gentleman of fortune, I believe, that ever sailed the seas."
"Not so, my lord!" Joe Kirk yelled. "He fears me for my knowledge of his deeds! Help! Hold him—hold him!"
Tom Jordan swore a great oath and Joe Kirk leaped up in his seat, white and shaking, and cried over and over that it was all a lie, and there was a merry time of it before the attendants restored peace.
And then, to the further amazement of all in the court, Captain Charles Winterton again rose.
"If I may add a word, my lord? Thank you, my lord. I observed that when the prisoners went below their manner toward this man Marsham was such as to lend a certain plausibility to his story. They took, in short, so vindictive a delight in his misfortunes that even then it seemed not beyond reason that his tale was true and that he had indeed left them without leave. That, of course, proves nothing with regard to his being a forced man; but it is a matter of common justice to say that, in consideration of all that I have seen before and of that which I have this day heard, I believe he hath told the truth both then and now. Thank you, my lord."
Such a hullabaloo of talk as then burst forth among the spectators, and such learned argument as passed between the proctors and the Lieutenant of Admiralty and His Lordship the Judge, surpass imagination. Some quoted the Latin and the Greek, while others of less learning voiced their opinions in the vulgar tongue, so that all in all there was enough disputation to fuddle the wits of a mere layman by the time they gave the case to the jury.
Then the jury, weighing all that had been said, put together its twelve heads, while such stillness prevailed in the court that a man could hear his neighbor's breathing. It seemed to those whose lives were at stake that the deliberations took as many hours as in reality they took minutes. There are times when every grain of sand in the glass seems to loiter in falling and to drift through the air like thistledown, as if unwilling to come to rest with its fellows below. Yet the sand is falling as fast as ever, though a man whose life is weighing in the balance can scarcely believe it; so at last the jury made an end of its work, which after all had taken little enough time in consideration of the matter they must decide.
"You have reached with due and faithful care a verdict in this matter?" quoth His Lordship.
"We have, my lord."
"You will then declare your verdict to the Court."
"Of these fourteen prisoners at the bar of justice, my lord, we find one and all guilty of the felonies and piracies that are charged against them, save only one man." In the deathly silence that fell upon the room the name sounded forth like the stroke of a bell. "We acquit, my lord, Philip Marsham."
There and then Philip Marsham parted company with the men of the Rose of Devon. His hands shook when he rose a free man, and when many spoke to him in all friendliness he could find no voice to reply.
Never again did he see their faces, but he heard long afterward of how, a week from the day of their trial, they went down the river to Wapping in wherries, with the bright sun shining on the ships and on the shore where a great throng had assembled to see them march together up the stairs to Execution Dock.
Though they had always made themselves out to appear great and fierce men, yet on that last day they again showed themselves cravens at heart—except Tom Jordan. The Old One, stern, cold, shrewd, smiled at his fellows and said, "It is to be. May God have mercy on me!" And though he stood with the black cap over his eyes and the noose round his neck, he never flinched.
As for Martin Barwick, his face grey with fear, he strove to break away, and cried out in English and in Spanish, and called on the Virgin. Sadly, though, had he fallen from the teachings of the Church, and little did his cries avail him! He came at the last to the end he had feared from the first; and his much talk of hanging was thus revealed to have been in a manner prophecy, although it sprang from no higher oracle than his own cowardly heart.
One told Philip Marsham that Mother Taylor was hanged; another said they let her go, to die a natural death in the shadow of the gallows that stood by the crossroads in her native town of Barnstable. Either tale is likely enough, and Phil never learned which was true.
For aught I know to the contrary, she may have found an elixir of life as good as the one discovered by the famous Count de Saint-Germain, and so be living still.
Whatever the end she came to, Phil Marsham was far away when they determined her fate. For the day he stepped out in the streets of London, a free man once more and a loyal subject of the King, he took the road to the distant inn where he was of a mind to claim fulfillment of Nell Entick's promise.
If this were a mere story to while away an idle hour, I, the scribe, would tie neatly every knot and leave no Irish pennants hanging from my work. But life, alas, is no pattern drawn to scale. The many interweaving threads are caught up in strange tangles, and over them, darkly and inscrutably, Atropos presides. Who cannot recall to mind names and faces still alive with the friendship of a few weeks or months,—a friendship pleasant in memory,—a friendship that promised fruitful years, but that was lost for ever when a boy or man drifted out of sight for one reason or another, and on one tide or another of the projects that go to make up life? To Philip Marsham, tramping again the high roads of England, there came, mingled with many other desires, a longing to see once more the Scottish smith who had wrought the dirk that had tasted blood for his protection in those dark adventures at sea. But when he came to the smithy beside the heath he found it open and empty. The wind blew the door on rusty hinges; brown leaves had drifted in and lay about the cold forge; the coals were dead, the bellows were broken, and the lonely man who had wrought iron on the now rusty anvil had taken his tools and gone.
The day was still young, for the wayfarer, starting early and in the fullness of his strength, had this day covered three miles in the time that one had taken him when he walked that road before. So he left the smithy and pushed on across the heath and far beyond it, marking each familiar farm and village and country house, until night had fallen and the stars had come out, when he laid him down under a hedge and slept.
He was thinking, when he fell asleep, of Nell Entick. He remembered very well her handsome face, her head held so high, her white throat and bare arms. He was going back to the inn to claim fulfillment of her promise and he pictured her as waiting for him there. In most ways he was a bold, resolute youth who had seen much of life; but in some ways, nevertheless, he was a lad of small experience, and if he thought at all that she had been a little overbold, a little overwilling, he thought only that she was as honestly frank as he.
Waking that night upon his bed of leaves, he saw far away on a hill the dancing flames of a campfire, concerning which he greatly wondered. For, having been long out of England, he had small knowledge of the ups and downs of parliaments and kings; and in the brief time since his return, of which he had spent nearly all in prison, he had heard nothing of the tumultuous state of the kingdom, save a few words dropped here or there while he was passing through hamlets and villages, and seen nothing thereof save such show of arms as in one place or another had caught his eye but not his thought. Although he knew it not, since he was a plain lad with no gift of second-sight, he lay in a country poised on the brink of war and his bed was made in the field where a great battle was to be fought.
He went on at daylight, and going through a village at high noon saw a preacher in clipped hair and sober garb, who was calling on the people to be valiant and of good courage against those wicked men who had incited riot and rebellion among the Roman Catholics in Ireland, whereby the King might find pretext for raising a vast army to devastate and enslave England. Sorely perplexed by this talk, of which he understood little, Phil besought a sneering young fellow, who stood at no great distance, for an explanation; to which the fellow replied that it was talk for them that wore short hair and long ears, and that unless a man kept watch upon his wits his own ears would grow as long from hearing it as those of any Roundhead ass in the country. At this Phil took umbrage; but the fellow cried Nay, that he would fight no such keen blade, who was, it seemed, a better man than he looked. And with a laugh he waved the matter off and strolled away.
So to the inn Phil came in due time, having meditated much, meanwhile, on the talk of the King and war and the rights of Parliament, which was in the mouths and ears of all men. But he put such things out of his mind when at last he saw the inn, for the moment was at hand when his dreams should come true and he should find waiting for him the Nell Entick he remembered from long ago.
Surely a lad of enterprise, who had ventured the world over with pirates, could find in any English village something to which he could turn his hand. Indeed, who knew but some day he might keep the inn himself—or do better? Who knew? He remembered Little Grimsby and drew a long breath. Caught in a whirl of excitement that set the blood drumming in his ears, he strode into the house and, boldly stepping up to the public bar, called loudly, "Holla, I say! I would have speech of Mistress Nell Entick."
From a tall settle in the corner, where he sat taking tobacco, there rose a huge man with red and angry face.
"Who in the Devil's name art thou," he roared, "that comes ranting into an honest house and bawls out thus the name of Mistress Nell Entick?"
There were as usual a couple of countrymen sitting with pots of ale, who reared their heads in vast amazement, and in the noisy kitchen down the passage a perceptible hush followed the loud words. The house seemed to pause and listen; the countrymen set down their pots; there was a sound of creaking hinges and of lightly falling feet.
Very coolly, smiling slightly, Philip Marsham met the eyes of the big, red-faced man. "It seems," said he, "thou art riding for another fall."
A look of recognition, at first incredulous, then profoundly displeased, dawned on the red face and even greater anger followed.
"Thou banging, basting, broiling brogger!" he thundered. "Thou ill-contrived, filthy villain! Out the door! Begone!"
"It seems, Jamie Barwick, that thy wits are struck with years. Have care. Thy brother is already on the road to Wapping—they have signed and sealed his passage."
The fat man came to Phil with the slow gait and the low-hung head of a surly dog. He thrust his red face close to Phil's own.
"Yea, it is thou," he sneered. "I am minded to beat thee and bang thee till thou goest skulking under the hedges for cover. But it seems thou hast good news. What is this talk of the hangman's budget?"
"It is true. By now thine excellent brother hath in all likelihood donned the black cap and danced on air. As for beating and banging—scratch thy head and agitate thy memory and consider if I have given thee reason to hope for quietness and submission."
There was a flicker of doubt in the man's small eyes, whereby it seemed his memory served him well.
"And what meanest thou by saying thou would'st have speech of Mistress Nell Entick?" he asked suspiciously.
"That concerns thee not."
"Ha!" He scowled darkly. "Methinks it concerns me nearly!"
And then a high voice cried, "Who called my name?"
They turned and Phil Marsham's face lighted, for she stood in the door. She was not so fair as he had pictured her—what lad's memory will not play such tricks as that?—and he thought that when he had taken her away from the inn she need never again wear a drabbled gown. But it was she, the Nell Entick who had so lightly given him her promise and kissed him as he fled, and he had come for her.
"Back again, John? Nay, John was not thy name. Stay! No, it hath escaped me, but I remember well thy face. And shall I bring thee ale? Or sack? We have some rare fine sack."
He stared at her as if he could not believe his ears had told him right. "I have come," he said, "to claim a certain promise—"
She looked bewildered, puzzled, then laughed loudly. "Silly boy!" she cried. "I am these six months a wife."
"A wife!"
"Yea, and mine," cried Barwick. "Come, begone I I'll have no puppies sniffling at her heels."
At something in the man's manner, the full truth dawned on Philip Marsham. "I see. And you have taken the inn?"
"Yea, that I have! Must I split thy head to let in knowledge? Begone!"
She laid her hand on Barwick's wrist. "The lad means no harm," she whispered. "Come, it is folly to drive trade away." And over Barwick's shoulder she cast Phil such a glance that he knew, maid or matron, she would philander still.
But Phil had seen her with new eyes and the old charm was broken. (Perhaps if Tom Marsham had waited a year before he leaped into marriage, I had had no story to tell!) All that was best in the father had come down to the son, and Phil turned his back on the siren with the bold, bright eyes. He turned his back on the inn, too, and all the dreams he had built around it—a boy's imaginings raised on the sands of a moment's fancy. Nay, he turned his back on all the world he had hitherto known.
With a feeling that he was rubbing from his face a spider's web of sordidness,—that he was cutting the last cord that bound him to his old, wild life,—stirred by a new and daring project, he went out of the inn and turned to the left and took the road in search of Sir John Bristol.
Sir John Bristol! There, gentlemen, was a brave, honest man! A man of spirit and of a humour! If you crossed him, if you toyed with him, his mirth was rough, his hand was hard, he was relentless as iron. But for a man who stood his ground and fought a bold fight and met squarely the old man's eyes, there was nothing Sir John would not do.
After all his weary travels by land and sea, Philip Marsham had at last come back to find a man whom he had seen but once and for a brief time. Yet in that man he had such complete confidence as he had never had in any other, and since Jamie Barwick had left the man's service and taken the inn—who knew?
Striding over the same rolling country road that he had tramped with Martin long before, and coming soon to the park, he skirted it and pressed on, keeping meanwhile his eyes and wits about him, until he perceived a gate and a porter's lodge. He went to the gate and finding it ajar slipped through and made haste up a long avenue with overarching trees. A man from the lodge came out and angrily called after the intruder, but Phil never looked back. The avenue turned to the left and he saw at a distance the great house; he was of no mind to suffer hindrance or delay.
The sunset sky threw long, still shadows across the grass, and countless wandering branches of ivy lay like a dark drapery upon the grey walls of the old house. A huge dog came bounding and roaring down the avenue, but when the lad smiled without fear and reached a friendly hand toward him, the beast stopped clamouring and came quietly to heel. Lights shone from the windows and softly on the still evening air the thin, sweet music of a virginal stole over the broad terraces and lawns.
The clamour of the dog, it seemed, had attracted the attention of those within, for a grey-haired servant met the stranger in the door. He stood there suspiciously, forbiddingly, and with a cold stare searched the young man from head to heel.
"I would have speech of Sir John Bristol," said Phil.
The servant frowned. "Nay, you have blundered," he replied haughtily. "The servants' hall—"
"I said Sir John."
"Sir John? It is—ahem!—impossible."
"I said Sir John."
The servant moved as if to shut the door.
"Come," said Phil quietly, "enough of that! I will have speech of Sir John Bristol."
For a moment the servant hesitated, then from within a great voice cried, "Come, Cobden, what's afoot?"
In haughty disapproval of the lad without, the servant turned his back, but to the man within he spoke with deference, as if apologizing. "Yea, Sir John. The fellow is insistent, but I shall soon have him off."
"Go, Cobden. Leave him to me."
The servant moved away and disappeared.
The virginalling had ceased, and on the lawns and the avenue and the park, which stretched away into the dark valley, a deep silence had come with the twilight. The sun had set and the long shadows across the grass were lost in the greater shadow of evening. As the world without had grown darker, the lights within seemed to have grown brighter.
"Come, fellow, come into the hall. So! Have I not seen thee before?"
"Yea, Sir John."
"Ha! I can remember faces. Aye, there are few that escape me. Let us consider. Why, on my life! This is the lad that gave Barwick such a tumbling that the fellow walked lame for a month. Speak up! Have I not placed thee right?"
"Though I was faint for want of food, I was quicker on my feet than he."
The old man laughed until his brave curls shook.
"In faith, and it is said with moderation. And what now, lad? What hath brought thee hither?"
"Since Barwick hath left your service—"
"That he hath, that he hath!"
"It seemed there might be a place for a keeper."
"For a keeper? Ha, ha, ha! Nay, th' art too spirited a lad to waste away as keeper. Mark my word, lad, the King will shortly have need for such courageous gallants as thou. Unless I mistake thy spirit, we shall soon see thee riding among the foremost when we chase these dogs of Roundheads into the King's kennels and slit their noses and prick their ears as a warning to all of weak mind and base spirit."
"I have a taste for such sport, and God knows I am the King's man."
"Good, say I!" Sir John's clear eyes searched the frank eyes of the lad, and the old man was pleased with what he found. "Come, the cook shall fill thy belly and Cobden shall find thee a bed. Cobden! Cobden, I say!"
"Yea, Sir John."
"Make place for this good fellow in the servants' hall and see that he hath all that he can eat and drink."
"Yea, Sir John."
"But stay a moment. Thy name, fellow."
"Philip Marsham."
"Philip Marsham?" The heavy brows knotted and Sir John spoke musingly. "Philip Marsham! I once knew a man of that name."
Silence fell upon the hall. Grey Cobden stood a little behind his master, and when Phil looked past Sir John he saw standing in a door the tall, quiet girl he had seen with the old knight that day in the wood so long since. Doubtless it was she who had played upon the virginal. Her dark eyes and fine dignity wove a spell around the lad—a spell of the magic that has come down from the beginning of time—the magic that is always young.
Take such spells, such magic, as lightly as you please; yet they have overturned kingdoms and not once, but many times, have they launched a thousand ships.
"Did you ever hear of Dr. Marsham of Little Grimsby?" Sir John asked, and he watched the lad very closely.
"Yea."
"And what have you heard of him?"
"He is my grandfather."
"So!" The old knight stepped back and bent his brows. "Verily," he said, "I believe the lad hath spoken truth. Go, Cobden. There is no place in the hall for this lad."
The servant departed and the girl stepped nearer.
"Your father's name?" Sir John said.
"My father's name was Thomas Marsham."
"Doubtless he bred you to the sea."
"He did."
"He broke the hearts of his father and his mother."
Phil stood silent in the hall and looked Sir John in the eye. Since there seemed to be no reply, he waited for the knight to speak again.
"Tom Marsham's father and mother are dead, but within the year, lad, they stood where you are standing now. It was the last time I saw them."
What could a young man say? Phil Marsham remembered well the one time he had himself seen them. Who knew what might have happened had he spoken? But the chance was gone, and for ever.
"There is no place for Philip Marsham in my servants' hall," said Sir John. "His father—but no! Let the dead lie. There is no place for Philip Marsham in my servants' hall. Under my roof he is my guest."
The story of Philip Marsham and of Sir John Bristol, and of the fortune left by the good Doctor Marsham of Little Grimsby,—how it came to his grandson and was lost in the war that brought ruin to many a noble family,—is a tale that may some day be worth the telling. Of that, I make no promises.
The years that followed were wild and turbulent, but during their passage Phil chanced upon one reminder and another of his earlier days of adventuring. He saw once again the long, ranting madman who had carried the great book. He might not have known the fellow, who was in a company of Brownists or Anabaptists, or some such people, had he not heard him crying out in his voice like a cracked trumpet, to the great wonder and admiration of his fellows, "Never was a man beset with such diversity of thoughts." There was Jacob, too, who had sneaked away like a rat on the eve of the day when Tom Jordan's schemes fell about his ears: Phil once came upon him face to face, but when their eyes met Jacob slipped round a corner and was gone. He was a subtle man and wise, and of no intention to be reminded of his days as a pirate.
Philip Marsham went to the war with Sir John Bristol, and fought for the King, and rose to be a captain; and with the story of Philip Marsham is interwoven inseparably the story of Anne Bristol and of her father, Sir John. For Sir John Bristol died at the second battle of Newbury with his head on Philip Marsham's knees; and in his grief at losing the brave knight who had befriended him, the lad prayed God for vengeance on the Roundhead armies.
And yet, though his grief was bitter, he had too just a mind to see only one side of a great war. Once, when they sent him from the King's camp on a secret mission, the enemy ran him to cover, and he escaped them only by doubling back and hiding in the garret of a cottage where he lay high under the thatch and watched through a dusty little window the street from the Red Boar Inn down the hill to the distant meadows, without being himself seen. He heard far away a murmur as of droning bees. Minutes passed and he heard the drone settle into a hollow rumble, from which there emerged after a time the remote sound of rattling drums and the occasional voices of shouting men. Then, of a sudden, there broke on the air a sound as of distant thunder, in which he made out a chorus:—
"His staff and rod shall comfort me,His mantle e'er shall be my shield;My brimming cup I hold in feeOf him who rules the battlefield."
"His staff and rod shall comfort me,His mantle e'er shall be my shield;My brimming cup I hold in feeOf him who rules the battlefield."
"His staff and rod shall comfort me,
His mantle e'er shall be my shield;
My brimming cup I hold in fee
Of him who rules the battlefield."
The voices of the singing men came booming over the meadows. They were deep, strong voices and there was that in their volume and fierce earnestness which made a man shiver.
Phil heard a dog barking; he saw a woman standing in the door of a cottage; he saw a cloud of dust rise above the meadow; then they came.
First a band of men on foot in steel caps, with their firelocks shouldered, swinging out in long, firm strides. Then a little group of kettledrums, hammering away in a fierce rhythm. Then a number of horsemen, with never a glint of gold on their bridles and never a curl from under their iron helms. Then, rank behind rank, a solid column of foot that flowed along the dusty road over hillock and hollow, dark and sombre, undulating like a torpid stream of something thick and slow that mightily forces a passage over every obstacle in its way.
They came up the hill, turning neither to right nor to left, up the hill and over it, and away to the north, where King Charles and all his armies lay.
It was a fearful sight, for they were stern, determined men. There was no gallant flippancy in their carriage; there was no lordly show of ribbands and linen and gold and silver lace. They frowned as they marched, and looked about them little. They bore so steadily on, they made one feel they were men of tempered metal, men of no blood and no flesh, men with no love for the brave adventures of life, but with a streak of iron in their very souls.
Philip Marsham had heard the men of the Rose of Devon go into battle with cries and shouting, and laugh when they killed; he had seen old Sir John Bristol throw back his head proudly and jest with the girls of the towns on their march; but these were men of another pattern.
He became aware, as he watched them go by—and he then knew the meaning of fear, safely hidden though he was, behind the dirty and small window in the gable; for had one man of those thousands found him there, it would have ended the fighting days of Philip Marsham—he became aware that here was a courage so stubborn there was no mastering it; that here was a purposeful strength such as all the wild blades in his master's camp could never match. Their faces showed it; the marching rhythm of the never-ending column was alive with it.
Behind the first regiments of infantry, horsemen came, and, at an interval in the ranks of the cavalry, five men rode together. The eyes of one, who led the four by a span or two, were bent on the road, and his face was stern and strong and thoughtful. As Phil watched him, the first hesitating surmisal became conviction, and long afterward he learned that he had been right. From his gable window he had seen Oliver Cromwell go by.
All that afternoon the column streamed on, and in the early darkness Philip fell asleep to the sound of men marching. In the morning they were gone, and he went on his way and fulfilled his mission; but though the King's men fought with a gallantry that never lessened, the cause of the King was lost, and the day broke when Philip Marsham was ready to turn his back on England.
So he came a second time to the harbour of Bideford, in Devon, and had it in his mind to take ship for some distant land where he could forget the years of his youth and early manhood. He was in the mood, then, to envy Sir John Bristol and all the gallant company that had died on the fields of Naseby and Newbury, and of many another great battle; for he was the King's man, and great houses of the country had fallen, and many lords and gentlemen whose estates had gone to pay the cost of Cromwell's wars had as much reason as he, and more, to wonder, at the sight of deep water, whether it were better to die by one's own hand or to seek new fortunes beyond the sea.
There were many vessels in the harbour and his gaze wandered over them, ships and pinks and ketches and a single galliot from the Low Countries, until his eyes came at last to one of singularly familiar aspect. He looked at her a long time, then strolled down to the quay and accosted an aged man who was warming his rheumatic limbs in the sun.
"What ship is that," said Captain Marsham, "which lies yonder, in line with the house on the farther shore to the right of the three trees?"
The aged man squinted over the harbour to pick up the bearings his questioner had given him and cleared his throat with a husky cough.
"Why, that," he said, "beës the frigate they call Rose of Devon."
"The Rose of Devon—nay, she cannot be the Rose of Devon!"
"Can and beës. Why does 'ee look so queer, sir?"
"Not the Rose of Devon!"
"Art 'ee addled?" He laughed like a cackling hen. "Aye, an' yon's her master."
The master turned when the young captain accosted him, and replied, with reasonable civility, "Yea, the Rose of Devon, Captain Hosmer, at your service, sir. Passage? Yea, we can take you, but you're a queer sort to ask passage ere you know whither she sails. Is it murder or theft?"
"Neither. The old order is changing and I would go abroad."
"To the colonies?"
"They tell me all the colonies are of a piece with these Roundheads here, and that as many psalms are whined in Boston in New England as in all the conventicles in London."
He laughed in good humour. "You are rash," said he. "Were I of the other side, your words might cost you your head. But we're going south to Barbados, and there you'll find men to your own taste."
Captain Philip Marsham wished no more than that. So he struck a bargain for passage, and paid with gold, and sailed from England for the second time in the old Rose of Devon, the dark frigate that by God's grace had come back to Bideford in the hour when he most needed her.
THE END
THE DARK FRIGATE
ByCHARLES BOARDMAN HAWES
The frigateRose of Devonrescues from a wreck in mid-ocean twelve men who show their gratitude by seizing theRose, killing her captain and sailing toward the Caribbean where they hope to plunder Spanish towns and galleons. Mistaking an English man-of-war for a merchantman, they are captured and brought back to England for trial. Only one, an English lad, Philip Marsham, a member of the original crew of theRose, is acquitted; and he, after adventures in the forces of King Charles, tires of Cromwell's England and sails for Barbados once more on theRose of Devon.
"The Dark Frigate" has long been a favorite story for boys and in 1924 was awarded the John Newbery Medal, given annually "for the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children."
When "The Dark Frigate" was first published F. F. Van deWater inThe New York Tribunesaid: "No one, we think, has written so perfect a pirate tale since 'Treasure Island'."
With frontispiece in full color byANTON OTTO FISCHER
THE MUTINEERS
ByCHARLES BOARDMAN HAWES
This rousing pirate story of the Pacific has proved even more popular than the author's Newbery Prize-winning "The Dark Frigate." Originally published as an Atlantic Monthly Press Book in 1920, it has delighted thousands of adventure-loving boys (and girls too!). From the moment when young Benjamin Lathrop of Salem signs up with Captain Whidden of theIsland Princessthe reader embarks on a reading voyage of high and gleaming excitement.
"There is the atmosphere of the old-time ships and the spirit of the sailors of a century ago—such as you find in the pages of Dana and Stevenson.... Here is a story that stands out with distinction among all the sea stories of many years."
—Boston Herald
With frontispiece in full color byANTON OTTO FISCHER