"I would not be a serving-manTo carry the cloak-bag still,Nor would I be a falconerThe greedy hawks to fill;But I would be in a good house,And have a good master too;And I would eat and drink of the best,And no work would I do."
"I would not be a serving-manTo carry the cloak-bag still,Nor would I be a falconerThe greedy hawks to fill;But I would be in a good house,And have a good master too;And I would eat and drink of the best,And no work would I do."
"I would not be a serving-manTo carry the cloak-bag still,Nor would I be a falconerThe greedy hawks to fill;But I would be in a good house,And have a good master too;And I would eat and drink of the best,And no work would I do."
It was not many days afterwards that Lord Champernoun, riding into Plymouth, halted at the sign of the Pestle and Mortar and informed the barber-surgeon that his son Timothy was to consider himself engaged as squire and personal attendant to Master Gilbert. His lordship gave instructions that Timothy was to go at once to Silas Quiller, the tailor, to be measured for two suits of the Oglander livery, and that as soon as the lad was fitted-out he was to repair to the manor and to begin his duties.
Those duties were very simple, as Timothy early discovered. He was to act as valet to the young heir of Modbury; to comb his hair in the mornings, keep his wardrobe in good order, attend him on his journeys, and do his bidding in all things. At the first Timothy was very humble, as he deemed it his duty to be; but as the months went on and he acquired some of the manners of the gentlefolk among whom he was placed, he became more familiar with his young master, who treated him more as a companion and a playmate than as a servant. Yet Timothy never overstepped the limits of his position, but was always respectful and submissive and loyal.
THE MAN WITH THE SCARRED CHEEK.
ONa certain afternoon in December, Gilbert Oglander and Timothy Trollope were loitering on the heights of Plymouth Hoe on their way into the town. They were looking out across the Sound, watching the movements of a ship that was drifting inward with the tide. A breeze from off the sea swelled the vessel's worn and mended topsails; she moved with a slow, lazy motion, as if in very weariness. The lads were questioning what manner of ship she might be and whence she had come.
"'Tis an old Hollander putting in for repairs," ventured Gilbert. "I warrant me she hath suffered some damage in the storm of yesternight."
Timothy shook his head, and then, after a short pause, he said:
"No, Master Gilbert, she is no foreigner at all, but one of our own brave English adventurers. Look at the tattered flag waving from the staff on her after-castle. 'Tis the red cross of St. George. And by the decayed and grimy look of her, I'd judge that she hath been on some long and perilous voyage—it may be to far Cathay, or the scorching coasts of Africa, or it may even be to the Western Indies of which we have heard so much."
"An that be so," returned Gilbert as he stood gazingwith wondering eyes upon the approaching ship, "methinks there will be some very strange surprising things for us to see and hear when she droppeth anchor in the haven yonder. She is deeply laden, look you. 'Tis the bars of silver in her hold that do weigh her down, or else the heavy chests of gold and precious stones. Ay, 'tis surely from the Spanish Main that she hath come; for now as she beareth round I can e'en see the shining gold-dust clinging to her sides from out her port-holes like flour-drift from out the windows of Modbury Mill."
Timothy smiled incredulously and moved apart from his companion.
"'Tis no gold-dust that you see, my master," said he, "but only the red iron from off her rust-eaten chains. Come, let us walk down unto the harbour, that we may get a nearer view of her and see what manner of voyagers she bringeth home."
They walked together down the grassy slopes. In aspect, as in their natures, they differed one from the other as much as a heavy Flemish horse differs from an agile Arab steed. Timothy looked much the elder, although in truth he was his master's senior by no more than a twelvemonth. Gilbert had much ado to keep pace with his long measured strides, or perhaps it was his own great riding-boots of thick hard leather coming up above his knees which made his steps seem difficult. The strong December wind, blowing from over the Channel, caught his ample cloak, and thegarment was forever escaping from his careless hold and flapping outward behind him, assailing his ears or getting twisted about his long sword. As the cloak blew aside from his shoulders it revealed the pink silk slashings of his doublet of russet velvet and the glittering ornaments on his girdle. He wore a little velvet cap, embroidered with gold lace and surmounted with a gallant waving feather which was held in place by a pearl brooch.
Timothy towered a full head and shoulders above him, being indeed almost a man in height and build, with great broad shoulders and big strong hands and muscular arms, and plump cheeks that were as red as ripe Devon apples. But in spite of his great bulk and his somewhat ungainly figure, Tim was nevertheless alert and active when occasion required, as many of his acquaintance were well aware; for at a wrestling bout, at fencing, riding, climbing, swimming, and many other manly exercises, there were few who could excel him. He was dressed very plainly now, as beseemed one whose work it was to serve and to obey. His cap, which was set jauntily on his head of curly red hair, was not of silk or velvet, but simple knitted wool, unadorned with any gay-coloured ribbons or flaunting feathers. He wore no lace ruff about his thick neck, but only a simple white linen collar. His body was covered by a doublet of plain tan-coloured leather; his wide trunks were of fustian, trimmed with cotton braid and gartered below the knee; and hewore low shoes without any spurs. Like his young master, he carried a sword; and he also had in his belt a small dagger. He was well skilled in the use of both these weapons, and during the months that he had passed in Master Oglander's service he had imparted much of this skill to Gilbert.
By the time that the two had got down to the level ground, and had passed through several of the quaint narrow streets leading towards the harbour, the strange ship had sailed far to the eastward of Mill Bay; her men were aloft furling the sails, and she was slowly drifting with the tide into the sheltered basin of Sutton Pool.
Some fishermen and seamen had gathered in groups upon the wharf to watch her as she came nearer, and to make conjectures as to what might be her name and whence she had come. Gilbert Oglander strode into their midst and stood awhile listening to their talk.
"'Tis a full three years since she sailed out of Plymouth Sound," said one of them.
"Ay, and the rest!" declared another. "Why, 'twas in the summer of 1586 that she went out—in the self-same month, if not the same week, that Thomas Cavendish sailed with his three ships to make the voyage round the world, and that, as I do reckon it, must be nigh upon four years and six months; though in truth it seemeth less. But the years do fly amazingly in these busy times!"
"Know you the name of this vessel that is now coming in, Master Whiddon?" asked Gilbert of a brown-faced mariner at his elbow.
"Ay, to be sure, Master Oglander," returned Whiddon. "We do make her out to be thePearl—one of Sir Walter Raleigh's ships—that went out along with two others upon a voyage of adventure to the Brazil, or some such place. Master Will Marsden, of Plymouth, was her captain; an old playmate of mine own, and a right fortunate seamen in his younger days. Well do I mind how we all envied him when he set out on this same voyage. But alas! by the look of his ship at this moment, and the fact that he hath come home alone and unattended, I much doubt that he hath left the better part of his good fortune behind him. Ah, there be blackamoors aboard of her!"
"Ay," interposed another of the group, who by his apron and his turned-up sleeves was evidently an artisan and a landsman. "And at seaman's work too. A woeful sign, my masters! Where be all the brave men of Devon that set sail in her, I'd like to know? Down among the coral and the shrimps at the bottom of the sea, I suppose, or else toiling in Spanish galleys, imprisoned by the Inquisition, or lying dead with the crows a-picking of their bones out yonder in Panama. 'Tis ever so with these buccaneering cruises. I like them not, for they do ever end with disaster."
"Thou'rt over-quick with thy conjectures, Jack Prynne," said the man named Whiddon. "The craftis short-handed, 'tis true; but how know you that the brave men you speak of have not given up their lives for old England in honest fight against the Spaniards? Had you yourself been as brave as they—God rest 'em!—you would not have taken flight from Plymouth the last week, as you did with the other timid fools, because of a mere idle alarm that the king of Spain was sending over another armada, forsooth. A brave thing, truly, thus to take to your heels. Why, man, I marvel that y'are not ashamed to show your craven face in the town again!"
Jack Prynne stroked his beard, partly hiding his shamed face with his big work-worn hand.
"When we went away," said he, "the town was ill-defended. Sir Francis Drake was absent."
"The more reason why every man should have remained to protect his home and do his duty by his neighbours," returned Whiddon. "Drake cannot well be in two places at once. What astonisheth me is, that you should all have come trooping back the instant you heard that Sir Francis had again taken up his residence in the town. Sure, 'tis a very high compliment to a man when his mere presence among us should inspire such confidence and allay such a general panic."
"There goes her anchor!" cried Timothy Trollope. And as he spoke there was a splash of water at the ship's bow, followed by the familiar rumbling noise of her hempen cable as it tore through the hawse-pipe.
Now that the vessel was close at hand it could beseen that she was very much battered by the storms and conflicts through which she had passed during her long voyaging in distant seas. The lower timbers of her hull were overgrown with barnacles and slimy green weeds. Above the water-line there were many shot-holes, patched up with raw hides, sheets of lead, or rough-hewn balks of wood; and in one place, abaft her main-chains, a cannon-ball could be seen deeply embedded in the stout oak. In place of her original mizzen-mast there was the trunk of a forest tree, with the bark still upon it; and the lateen yard was made of spliced bamboo. Her standing rigging was mended with strands of twisted cow-hide. She was a ship of about a hundred tons burden, built with a high castle at her poop and with bulging sides. Her bows were as round and blunt as the breasts of the noisy sea-birds that floated near her in the harbour, feeding on the garbage thrown from the fishing-boats.
She had not long been at anchor when a boat was put off from her, and was rowed by two men towards the stone-built slip beside which Gilbert Oglander and Timothy Trollope were standing. The boat had four occupants in addition to the two seamen who pulled at the oars. They were a black-bearded, middle-aged man who sat on the stern gunwale, and who seemed by his frequent commands to the rowers to be in authority; a woman, who sat near him; a beardless youth, who was crouching down in the bottom of the boat; and an aged, white-haired man, with a brownsunburned face and a long silvery beard, who was bending forward over the prow as if in desperate eagerness to spring on shore.
As the little craft came yet nearer, Timothy Trollope observed that the passengers seemed to be no less weary and tattered than the ship from which they had just come. The old man at the bow wore no clothing save a ragged canvas shirt and a pair of wide, ill-made trunks. One of the rowers had but a single sleeve to his jerkin, and his hair was long and matted. The woman wore a large black cloak, whose hood was drawn over her head, leaving visible no more of her than her thin olive-coloured face and her sparkling dark eyes. She paid scarcely any regard to what was passing, but sat like an image, gazing stonily before her.
"Ship your oar, Pascoe!" cried the man at the stern. "Pull three more strokes, Mason!"
He rose to his feet as he gave these orders, showing himself to be very tall. None of the men on shore seemed to know him; nor did he greet them, even as a stranger newly arrived from foreign climes might have been expected to do.
The old man at the bow was the first to leap on shore. And, having done so, he fell down upon his knees, reverently pressed his lips upon the stones, and murmured the words:
"Thanks be to God! Thanks be to God!"
Then he stood up beside the boat and held it bythe gunwale while the woman and the two other passengers stepped ashore.
Gilbert Oglander paid but small regard to them, little dreaming of the important parts they were destined to play in his life. He only noticed as they passed him that the tall man's otherwise handsome face was marred by an unsightly scar on the right cheek, that the youth seemed to be about sixteen years of age, and that the woman, when she spoke to either of her companions, did so in a foreign tongue.
The youth who had come ashore paused for a moment, tightening his sword-belt, and as he did so he glanced aside at the old man.
"Art going back to the ship, Jacob?" he inquired with seeming carelessness, yet with a look of strange eagerness in his dark eyes as if much depended upon the veteran's answer.
The graybeard slowly shook his head, and the deep-drawn sigh that issued from his lips seemed to Gilbert Oglander to betoken a whole world of past troubles and present gratitude.
"Wherefore should I go back, Master Philip?" said he in a husky voice. "Have I not had enough of the pestilent old hulk, think you? I have done all that was needed of me, I trow; and since, as you well know, I did but engage to work my passage home, there be no wages due to me and we are quits. As to my worldly belongings," he added with a hollow, uneasy laugh as he rested his bony hand upon theleathern bag that hung at his side, "this wallet containeth all my chattels and goods. Ay, all that I am worth in the world. And little enough, you'll be saying, as the sole outcome of all my perils and wanderings. Howbeit," he went on, not heeding that the young man had already passed beyond hearing and was continuing his way up the slip, "there's but small use in complaining. And after all, God hath been truly merciful in that He hath brought me safely back to my dear native land. Sure 'tis worth all my twenty-three years of voyaging to be back once more in Plymouth town and to again set foot on English ground!"
"GOD HATH BEEN TRULY MERCIFUL IN THAT HE HATH BROUGHT ME SAFELY BACK"
A gust of cold wind blew round one of the stone piers of the wharf near which he lingered. He shivered slightly, and drew his ragged canvas shirt closer about his bare chest and neck. Then his moist blue eyes surveyed the group of men who now stood apart watching the boat returning to the ship.
"I don't see none o' my old friends among you, my masters," said he, looking from one to the other. "You'm all strangers to me. And peradventure I am as great a stranger to yourselves. But the time hath been when I was as well known in Plymouth as the tower of St. Andrew's church yonder." A forced, unnatural smile flitted about the parched blue lips as he added, addressing no one in particular: "Jacob Hartop is my name—Jacob Hartop that went out with John Hawkins in the year 1567, and that hath now comehome after three-and-twenty years of foreign travel and fighting and slavish toil."
He held out his hand to grasp that of one of the older men who stood near. As he did so Timothy Trollope noticed that his wrist bore an indented mark upon it, as if it had been too tightly clasped by a bracelet. Several of the bystanders now shook hands with him.
"Thou'rt welcome home, friend Hartop," said one.
"God give you peace and joy, my master!" said another.
"And may you never need to wander from England's shores again!" said a third.
Captain Whiddon then stepped forward, and said he:
"Be you related to young George Hartop that fell in the great fight against the Invincible Armada of Spain?"
Jacob Hartop stared blankly before him. It was evident that he knew naught of the great fight referred to. He was about to answer when the touch of a hand on his thin bare arm caused him to turn suddenly round, and he stood face to face with Gilbert Oglander.
"Thou'rt thinly clad, and the wind blows cold," said Gilbert as he took off his cloak and spread it over the ancient traveller's shoulder. "I pray you take this cloak."
The old man drew back.
"Nay, I can take no such goodly gift from one whodoth owe me no manner of kindness," he declared, attempting to remove the garment. "Believe me, I am not so cold but that a walk and a flagon of ale will warm me." But seeing that the offer was seriously meant he relented, and, fixing his tearful eyes upon Gilbert, he said: "Now, prithee, my gallant young sir, what might be your honour's name? Tell me, so that I may bear it in memory, and think of you with the gratitude that I do truly feel."
Gilbert Oglander made a light pretence of not having heard the question, and, followed by Timothy, he strode gaily up to the head of the slip.
The tall man with the scar on his cheek was at this moment crossing the muddy roadway with his two companions towards a house with heavy overhanging gables, that stood at the corner of one of the alleys. It was a tavern, as could be known by the fact that the window lattices were painted red, and it bore the sign of the Three Flagons. The stranger had to bend down his head as he entered the low porchway.
"Truly a man may be known by the hostelry he chooseth," remarked Timothy Trollope as he saw the woman's skirts disappear behind the door-post. "I had thought by their favour that these people were of high station and good breeding, and that by their great haste to quit their ship they were intent upon travelling yet farther into the country, haply to some famous old estate. But 'tis plain to see that they do intend to abide at the humble Three Flagons. 'Tis a cheapinn and an ill-managed. Nevertheless, I should engage that they will have better comfort withal than on board the cranky oldPearl. Think you that the man with the wounded cheek is her captain?"
Gilbert shrugged his shoulders.
"A ship's master would scarcely be the first to quit her on coming into port," said he; "although, indeed, it may well be that the man's gallantry hath brought him ashore thus speedily in his wish to place the woman and her son in decent lodgings."
"And, prithee, wherefore do you so readily make up your mind that the lad is her son?" inquired Timothy.
"For the simple and plain reason that her eyes and his have got the self-same foreign look in them," answered Gilbert. "But wherefore should we discuss these people? Foreigners as they are, they can be of no earthly interest to us, now or hereafter. As to the ship, well, had we but gone aboard of her we might have learned something of more value touching the adventures she hath gone through; but as the matter stands, Tim, we have but wasted a good half-hour of time, and shall not now be home until after dark."
AT THE SIGN OF THE PESTLE AND MORTAR.
ONthe afternoon upon which the good shipPearldropped anchor in Sutton Pool, Peter Trollope was less busy than it was his wont to be at that time of day. His one customer since noon had been a poor farrier's apprentice, who had come in to have an aching tooth pulled out—an operation which had occupied the barber-surgeon scarcely a minute, and earned for him the total sum of twopence. But he had seen the ship enter the harbour, and knew well that sooner or later some of her crew would pay him a visit. In the meantime he engaged himself with two large, wild-looking birds, which he kept imprisoned in a dark box on a shelf near the window. He had just been feeding them with raw meat and was closing the lid of the box, when the shop-door was flung open and his son Timothy strode within, making a great clatter with his sword as he dragged the weapon behind him along the stone floor.
Tim threw his cap upon the oak settle at the farther end of the room, seated himself in an easy chair before the fire, and stretched out his legs at full length in front of him with all the freedom of a full-grown man. The bull-dog, which had been asleep in one of the warm corners of the ingle, crept out yawning and wagging his stump of a tail by way of greeting.
"So thou hast at last thought fit to come in and see if we be all alive still?" said Peter in an agrieved tone, as he regarded his stalwart son. "Thou'rt a dutiful son to thy poor parents, in all conscience. 'Tis shameful of thee, thus to neglect us, Tim. Thou'rt so vastly taken up with all the great folks at Modbury—my lord this, and my lady that, and all the rest of them—that thou dost seem to forget thine own flesh and blood. 'Twas only yesterday, as I live, that I saw thee passing by my very door without so much as looking in to give me a good day! Zounds, boy, 'tis most unseemly!"
Timothy stroked the dog's ears without raising his eyes to his justly-offended father.
"I had been bidden to go quickly on my errand, father," he explained, "and I dared not tarry by the way. I might not even have come in at this present time to see thee, but that my master hath given me leave while he goes to the end of the town to take a message from my lord to Sir Francis Drake."
"Methinks Master Oglander might have saved himself a journey," remarked the barber; "for 'tis only a half-hour since that I saw Sir Francis passing the door here, on his way, as I do believe, to Modbury Manor; for he wore his new damson silk cape with the gold-lace trimmings, and you may be sure by that token that he was going to where there will be women's eyes to look upon him."
Peter had approached the fireplace, and now stood with his back to the crackling logs, facing his son.
"I am sorry," he continued in a more cheery tone, "that Master Gilbert did not chance to come in with thee, Tim. I have wished to see him these many days past on a matter of business. I have here a pair of fine young goshawks that he might be willing to buy from me."
"Show them to me," demanded Timothy, rising from his chair. "If they be goshawks indeed, and in goodly condition, I doubt not that he will gladly buy them. Let me see them. I shall soon know if they be of any use. But I will wager you ere I set eyes on them that they are no more fit to fly against a pheasant than a mere sparrow-hawk might be."
"Nay, I cannot myself swear to them," said the barber, crossing to the shelf near the window, and proceeding to open the box, "for I have not been brought up among gentlefolks as thou hast been, and have never in all my life been present at a hawking party. But the lad who left them in my keeping did positively declare them to be of the true goshawk breed, and he bade me sell them for him if perchance I might find a likely customer." He threw back the lid of the box. "Here they be," said he.
Timothy looked over his father's shoulder at the birds. Then he thrust his gloved hand deep into the box. There was a noisy flapping of wings and a harsh rasping screech. Tim brought forth his hand with one of the hawks perched upon it. He held it aloft, examining the bird with critical eye.
"He is somewhat short i' the neck and flabby of flesh," he remarked, with the air of one who was a judge of such points, "but the head is of good shape, and the eyes are clear. He is fierce enough too, o' my conscience. Here, put him back, lest he bite me! And now," he added, when the bird was restored to its prison, "what want you for the pair of them? No cozening, mind you. I will not have my master overcharged even by my own father."
The barber-surgeon named the sum at which he was willing to sell the birds, and Tim at once proceeded to beat down the price to half the amount. Neither noticed in the midst of their dispute that a customer had entered the shop.
"Hi there, master barber!" cried the new-comer. "Cease your wrangling, and come and cut me my hair! Dost think I am going to wait for you all night?"
"Presently, your worship—presently," answered Peter, snatching up his scissors and comb. Then, turning to his son, he added: "Thy mother is laid abed with her old illness, Tim; get thee upstairs to her for awhile."
Timothy obediently disappeared through the door at the back of the shop, stumbling up the stairs with noisy feet and equally noisy sword; while his father, snipping his scissors merrily in his right hand and thus making a show of being exceedingly busy, offered his customer a chair where the light from the window might fall upon him.
He was a stranger to Peter Trollope, and therefore, it must be assumed, a stranger to Plymouth also. His long, untidy hair and beard, his bronzed skin, and, indeed, his whole appearance, betokened that he had newly come off the sea. His doublet, which had once been velvet, was worn threadbare; the colour, whatever it may originally have been, had suffered by the salt water, and was now an indistinct gray, stained here and there with dark-brown patches, which Peter surmised to be the stains of hardened blood. It was plain to see that the man was in some sort a warrior as well as a traveller.
While the barber was spreading a white napkin about him to protect his clothing from the clippings of hair which must presently fall from the scissors, he looked into the stranger's face, and perceived that the right cheek was marred by an old wound—a long straight wound like the cut of a knife, beginning below the eye and ending somewhere in the midst of his thick black beard.
"Well?" quoth the stranger, seeing that the barber hesitated to make a start. "Cut me my hair, I say."
"I am ready to execute your worship's will," announced Peter with a low bow, as he snipped his scissors. "Prithee, sir, will you have your worship's hair cut after the Italian manner, short and round, and then flounced with the curling-irons, or like a Spaniard's, long at the ears and curled like to the two ends of a new moon; or will you be Frenchified witha love-lock down to your shoulder, whereon you may hang your lady's favour? The English cut is base in these days of fashion, and gentlemen scorn it. Speak the word, sir; and howsoever you would have it, it shall be done."
"Nay, a plague on your love-locks and curling-irons," the stranger cried impatiently. "Do it as you please, but howsoever you do it, do it quickly. I know naught of your strange fashions and monstrous manners of haircutting. I have been absent from England so many years, that now when I come back I am as one who hath risen from out his grave to find all things changed."
"In truth, sir," observed the barber, "your worship will indeed find many changes, alike in government and in manners, if so be your absence hath been so long as you do say. Her Majesty's ministers and counsellors, indeed, have changed as often as the seasons. But the Queen herself, God bless her, is yet with us; so England is merry England still, and long may it so remain!"
Peter was now busy at work shearing his customer's plenteous crop of tangled hair.
"And how many years in all did your worship say that you had been abroad?" he ventured presently to inquire.
"More years than I care to number," was the somewhat curt reply.
"Ah!" responded Peter. "Then, sir, you had no handin the glorious defeat of the great Armada of Spain? Haply your worship was in some far-distant country at that great time?"
The stranger shifted his position in his chair. His fingers moved restlessly.
"Haply I was," he answered. "But had I chanced to be at the very extremities of the earth, methinks I should still have heard rumour of the matter; for wherever there be Spaniards and wherever there be Englishmen, they are alike disposed to boast of their own prowess on that occasion. And from neither the one nor the other is it possible to arrive at the simple truth."
"The simple truth is simply this, your honour," returned Peter Trollope, with a proud smile, "that the Spaniards, despite their greater ships and their greater army of soldiers, were utterly routed and defeated." And the gossiping barber proceeded to tell the whole story to his listening customer as he continued with his clipping.
At length, having fairly come to the beard, he broke off in his wordy narrative and requested to know if his worship would have his beard cut short and to a peak like Sir Francis Drake's, or broad and round like a spade. "Or shall I shave it off," said he, "and leave only your worship's moustachios?" But he had scarcely made the last suggestion when his eye was once more caught by the cut on the man's cheek. "I would advise that the beard be left as it is," he said,"for it doth help to hide the wound upon your face. Although, indeed, there be many men in Plymouth who would be mightily proud to display so honourable a scar, for I doubt not your worship came by it in some desperate battle against our enemies of Spain."
It was at this moment that Timothy returned into the shop. He overheard his father's remark, and noticed that for some reason the stranger winced, as though he were far from being proud of the old wound.
"I do perceive that 'tis the cut from a sword," added the barber-surgeon, looking at the scar more closely. "I trust, for the honour of England, that you slew the rascal who gave it you."
"'Tis no sword-cut, but a wound from an Indian's arrow, shot at me from ambush," declared the traveller; and there was a curious tone in his voice—a tone which seemed to indicate that he was in reality giving only a half explanation, or perhaps even a totally false one. In any case he hastened very plainly to change the subject.
"You named one Francis Drake just now," said he. "Peradventure you can inform me if he be still alive?"
"Alive? Ay, that he is! Alive and well, the Lord be praised! and in Plymouth town at this present time—ah! I beg your worship's pardon. Perhaps I caught your cheek with the point of my scissors?"
The stranger had given a slight nervous start, and a look of displeasure if not of actual annoyance had come into his dark eyes.
"In Plymouth at this present time?" he repeated. And then he muttered some words in a foreign tongue, which neither Timothy nor his father could comprehend.
"Had you chanced to come in but an hour earlier you might even have encountered him," remarked the barber, "for he passed by this very door, and returned my salutation most graciously, as, indeed, he doth always do, whenever I come nigh him; for he is by no means proud, I promise you, for all that he hath done more for England than any other living man. But I am talking thus while it may be that your worship doth know him far better than I—while it may even be that you are his personal friend."
The man with the scarred cheek made no response to this last remark, but only leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes and knitting his brows. He remained silent until Trollope had clipped his beard to a satisfactory shape and was giving it the final touches. Then the warrior looked up suddenly and said with curious earnestness, as though he were seeking an answer to a most important question:
"There dwelt in the neighbourhood of Plymouth a score of years ago or so, a certain nobleman by name Baron Champernoun. Canst tell me, master barber, if there be any of his lordship's family still dwelling in these parts?"
Peter Trollope glanced aside at his son and smiled. Timothy strolled slowly towards the window andseated himself near the two goshawks, whence he could watch the stranger's face.
"The name is passing well known to all men of Devon," answered Peter as he surveyed his workmanship with excusable pride. "And Lord Champernoun himself—the only Lord Champernoun that I have known—still dwelleth at his family estate nigh unto the village of Modbury. He is stricken in years and passing feeble; but clear in his mind withal, and as excellent and worthy a Christian gentleman as you will find in all the land. As to his lordship's family, sir, 'tis small in number. He had two sons, your worship, to wit, Edmund Oglander and Jasper; for Oglander is the family name, you must know, Champernoun being but the baron's title, bestowed upon the head of the family in Henry the Fifth's time, and—"
"Ay, I wot well that there were two sons," interrupted the stranger, brusquely, "Edmund and Jasper, you say. Ay, and what of them, I pray you?"
"They both are dead," returned Peter Trollope. "Both lost their lives in distant lands. The Honourable Edmund Oglander, my lord's eldest son, went over to the Netherlands some five years agone, and fell in the battle of Zutphen—the same engagement in which the virtuous and gallant Sir Philip Sidney received his death wound from a Spanish bullet. The younger son, Jasper, died of a fever or some such pestilent mischance out in the Western Indies, whitherhe had gone to seek adventure and fortune in one of John Hawkins' ships. His lordship grieved not overmuch for the loss of Jasper, 'tis said; nor do I marvel at it, for surely a greater scamp and reprobate than young Jasper Oglander hath never lived."
"And both are dead, eh?" mused the traveller in a strange calculating tone. "Ods life! and who would have thought it? Why, then," he presently added, "it must be that the old baron is now quite alone in the world, and hath none of his own kin to follow him in his title and estates? Sooth, I do pity him to be thus left desolate in his old age, with never a son or a son's son to carry on his honoured name!"
"'Tis doubtless a sore grief to his lordship that his son Edmund surviveth not to enjoy his great inheritance," remarked Peter Trollope, "albeit Master Edmund gave up his life in a good and noble cause, and therein Lord Champernoun hath assuredly a sweet consolation. But if his lordship hath no longer a son, there is, after all, his grandson—a bright and gallant young gentleman, and a worthy heir to so vast an heritage."
The stranger raised his heavy eyebrows in quick surprise.
"So-ho?" quoth he; "a grandson, eh? Prithee, what might be the fortunate stripling's age?"
The barber turned to his son, who was at that moment looking out through the window at a strangely-dressed negro woman who was crossing the road incompany with a seaman in the direction of the Three Flagons.
"Tim, what might be Master Gilbert's age?" he asked of the lad.
"Fourteen years, mayhap," answered Timothy. "And speaking of Master Gilbert, father, that remindeth me that I am to meet him at the market-cross at four by the clock; so I must tarry here no longer. I will let him know what you have said concerning the goshawks." And with that he took up his cap, wished his father a "God speed you!" and strolled out into the street.
As he approached the Three Flagons he was attracted by a little crowd of boys and girls who stood on the causeway staring at the black woman as she followed the seaman into the inn. At the same moment the youth whom Tim had seen coming ashore from thePearlwas making his way through the crowd. The lad glanced up at Tim in passing and seemed about to speak. Tim returned the glance and said:
"If 'tis the tall man with the scarred cheek that you are seeking, my master, you will find him at the sign of the Pestle and Mortar, some dozen yards along the Barbican on your left-hand side."
"'Tis not him that I am in want of at this moment," responded the lad, "I am seeking for the old rascal who came from off the ship with us an hour ago. Canst tell me which way he went?"
Timothy shook his head, disliking the haughty way in which the information was demanded.
"No," he answered. "'Twas no business of mine to spy upon him."
"I will reward you well if you can find him for me," pursued the other with unmistakable eagerness. And he thrust his fingers into his pouch and drew forth a small silver coin.
Timothy Trollope smiled and bade him keep his money. "As for my turning constable," he added, "I thank your honour, but I have other matters to occupy me." And so saying he went on his way towards the market-place.
As he walked along the harbour front his thoughts wandered back to the old storm-beaten mariner who had named himself Jacob Hartop. He remembered how Hartop, on stepping ashore, had gone down on his knees and fervently thanked his God for having brought him safely back to his native land, and how the tears had come into his dim eyes when Gilbert Oglander had done him the slight kindness of giving him a garment to cover his ill-clad body. Such a devout and grateful old man, thought Tim, could scarcely truly deserve the title of rascal which had just been applied to him. Why was this foreign-looking youth so very anxious that the old mariner should not escape him? Was it that he might do him some good service or pay him some debt of gratitude? Or was it not rather that he sought to do him some personal injury?
RAPIERS TO THE RESCUE.
ITwas already dark as night when Gilbert Oglander and Timothy Trollope, having kept their tryst in the old market-place, made their way together out of the dimly-lighted town. The wind had changed to the north-east, and snow had come with it. The white flakes swept along with a mad horizontal rush, alighting only, as by accident, when some tree or cottage or human figure barred their onward career. The two lads pulled down their caps about their tingling ears, bent their whitened bodies forward against the blast, and strode along regardless of the slush and mud upon the road.
Neither spoke much until they had walked almost a mile's distance away from the town and were out in the open country. Here the snow seemed to be falling thicker and the wind to be blowing almost a gale.
"Methinks thou hadst best have kept thy cloak to thyself, Master Gilbert," remarked Timothy at length, as he passed under the friendly shelter of a thick hedge, "for it had been of far greater use to thee than to the old man you so generously gave it to. Here are we exposed to the bitterness of this storm, while he, I will warrant me, is already at home before a goodly fire, or else carousing with his boon companions in some comfortable tavern parlour."
Gilbert walked on a few paces in silence.
"It matters little to me whether the cloak hath been of use to the poor fellow or not," he presently said. "I saw him tremble with the cold, and could not think of him going half-clothed while I had a garment to spare. And when one thinks on't, Tim, 'tis surely a hard matter for a seaman who hath spent half a lifetime in tropic countries to come home here to England in the very depth of winter."
"Pooh!" objected Timothy. "But 'tis said that an Englishman can endure any climate in the world and suffer no ill from it. What of Sir Martin Frobisher and his crews, who voyaged far up into the frozen regions of the Arctic, where, 'tis said, there be whole mountains of ice, and where even the salt seas be frozen over for a full half of the year? I will engage that Sir Martin and his men met not such kindly gentlemen up in those parts to give them warm cloaks withal. And as for this old man Hartop, I'd be in nowise astonished to-morrow if I heard that he had sold your cloak to a pawnbroker and spent the money in strong liquors, or else thrown it away in the dice-box. You cannot persuade me, Master Gilbert, that a man who hath been for a score of years in foreign lands could come home so poor as this man, if he had not squandered all his gains in wanton idleness."
"Misfortune doth ofttimes come even to those who are righteous," remarked Gilbert Oglander in a sober voice as he shook the wet snow from the front of hisdoublet and hitched his sword anew under his arm, "and I will not believe that the man who could devoutly thank God, as Hartop did, for having brought him safely home, could be aught but an honest man at heart."
"Nevertheless," pursued Timothy, "I do greatly fear that your charity in this present case was misplaced; for as I was passing nigh to the sign of the Three Flagons on my way to the market-place just now, I encountered once again the dark-eyed youth whom we saw coming from off the ship. He besought me to tell him, if I could, whither the old man Hartop had gone, and did even offer to reward me if I could aid him in arresting the old rascal, as he called him. He spoke in such wise that I could only believe that the old mariner had committed some cruel offence against him. And, indeed, Master Gilbert, if you remember, this Hartop was truly in a mighty desperate hurry to separate himself from his shipmates."
"Well, well, 'tis no affair of ours, Tim, howsoever it be," returned Gilbert. And he bent down his head and marched on in silence.
Tim Trollope walked in advance of his young master to shield him from the snow; and thus they plodded on their way, until they came to a narrow lane bordered by high overhanging trees that increased the darkness, and amid whose leafless, dripping branches the wind whistled and moaned. As the two turned into the lane Timothy dropped back to his companion's side.
"There is a matter upon which I listed to speak with you," he abruptly said, and then was silent for a dozen strides. "'Tis about the man we saw to-day—" he added, "the man with the scarred cheek."
"And what of him?" questioned Gilbert. "Hast learned peradventure that he hath discovered a new Eldorado? or that his ship is laden with a cargo of talking poll-parrots and gambolling monkeys? What of him, quotha?"
"Nay, I have learned but little concerning either him or his ship," answered Timothy. "But when I was in at the Pestle and Mortar this afternoon, he also was there, getting his hair and beard trimmed, and it chanced that he did question my father most curiously touching my lord your grandfather and your late uncle Jasper. It seemeth that he knew both your father and your uncle. And more especially was he interested as to yourself, Master Gilbert."
"How so?" exclaimed Gilbert, growing attentive now. "But if I heard him aright as he spoke to the woman who was with him, 'twas surely in the Portuguese that he spoke, and I marvel how any Portugal man could have known my father."
"'Tis true that he did speak in a foreign tongue," responded Timothy, "but, for all that, I take him to be an Englishman born, if indeed he be not even a man of Devon. My reason for speaking of him, however, is that he showed a very strange and surprising concern in the matter of my Lord Champernoun's titleand estates. When he was told that your uncle Jasper had died of a malaria out on the Spanish Main, a smile came upon his face. It was as if he knew a vast deal more about Jasper Oglander than we could tell him. 'Twas not my business to question one of my father's customers; but had I been bold enough I should certainly have asked him if 'twas not true, as I do suspect, that he had some part in the death of your uncle; for you must not forget, Master Gilbert, that the matter was never very clearly explained to us. Even Sir Richard Grenville threw some doubt upon the report that he died of a fever, and suggested that 'twas by the hand of man that he was taken off. And, indeed, if all we have heard of Jasper Oglander be true, he was a man (saving your presence) of such evil ways, that 'twould be no great wonder to me if he had been murdered by some one whom he had injured out there in wild Virginia."
"Thou'rt too prone to listen to idle gossip, Tim," rejoined Gilbert in a tone of reproof; "ay, and too ready to draw your own conclusions. For my own part I am willing to believe that Uncle Jasper was a far better man than report hath made him out to be. 'Tis true that I never knew him, and that I never even set eyes upon him save when I was a little child, and too young to judge of his character. But my grandfather hath never spoken an ill word of him in my hearing, and, prithee, what should that bode but that Jasper was a very worthy and proper gentleman?"
"Not in your hearing, it may well be," interposed Timothy, "but I do assure you that my lord hath no great cause to love his younger son's memory. As for your father (God rest him!), he and his brother Jasper were ever at enmity."
Gilbert walked on for many moments without speaking, but at last he said:
"I have heard more than once of that enmity, Tim, but never yet have I discovered its cause. Canst tell me why it was that they quarrelled, lad?"
"There were divers causes, Master Gilbert," returned Tim. "But for the most part the enmity arose (or so at least I have been told) out of Jasper Oglander's envy and jealousy. He was jealous of your father's greater wit and learning; of his greater skill in all games and manly sports; jealous in that his brother Edmund was chosen by the Queen to be one of Her Majesty's pages at the court and afterwards one of her favoured courtiers. But more than all else, 'tis said that he was jealous in that your father was the elder son, and by consequence the heir to the Champernoun title and lands. Also, you must understand—"
Gilbert suddenly gripped his companion's arm.
"Hark!" he cried. "Prithee, what is that strange wailing sound that I hear?"
Timothy came to a stand-still and held his breath, listening for a few moments.
"I hear naught whatsoever," said he, "naught but the wailing of the wind among the trees. Yet wait!there was in truth another sound. Was't not the screech of some wild bird of the night? No; 'tis there again. 'Tis someone singing—some wayfarer chanting a ditty to scare away the ghosts."
"Even so it is," agreed Gilbert. "Ay, and a likely place for a ghost too, down yonder in Beddington Dingle. I had rather travel a good five miles round than pass through that dark and desolate wood after midnight."
"And I also," returned Timothy, resuming his steady strides; "but less from the fear of ghosts and goblins than from dread of footpads and thievish vagabonds; for the place hath been overrun with them these many weeks past. 'Twas in that self-same hollow that Farmer Uscombe was robbed of his purse, and ten angels in it, only a seven nights since. Faith, my master, but the man in front of us hath truly a lusty and tuneful voice! Ay, and a clear. You can e'en hear his very words. 'Tis some mariner's song he singeth, touching the taming of the blustering winds or some such theme. Hark at him!"
The two lads gave no thought to the continuance of their broken conversation, but walked silently onward through the dark lane, guiding their way by the level patches of snowy ground that lay between the high and shadowy banks at the roadside. The wayfarer in advance of them was either walking very slowly or else coming towards them from the opposite direction, for his merry ditty became more and more distinct with every step they took.