The Golden Galleon Part 10

Such dogs, I have observed, have a natural aversion to seamen."

"Indeed, uncle, it can scarce be so with Nero," remarked Drusilla, "for he hath a marvellous fondness for Sir Francis Drake, and Sir Francis is a seaman in all conscience."

"Ay, plague on the man," muttered Jasper to himself. And presently he followed Drusilla across the courtyard and into the house.

Timothy Trollope had been for the longer half of the night in his young master's room--a small chamber in the west wing of the house, with very simple furniture, but being crowded with a variety of toy s.h.i.+ps, bows and arrows, kites, whips, spurs, morions, corselets, rapiers, foreign sh.e.l.ls, snakes bottled in oil, skins of rare animals and birds, and other curious and boyish gear. In front of the fireplace there was a large Polar bear skin, with the head still attached, given to Gilbert by his friend Sir Martin Frobisher. A small cas.e.m.e.nt window in a corner of the room was fitted like a s.h.i.+p's port-hole, with a demi-culverin made of bra.s.s pointing outward towards a strip of blue sea that could be discerned far away in the distance beyond the promontory of Rame Head.

Gilbert had once fired this cannon from this same place, loading it with stone-shot and aiming at a certain chestnut-tree in the park. The cannon had rebounded even to the farther end of the room, smas.h.i.+ng into a cupboard, much to the damage thereof. The report had alarmed the household, nay, even the whole country-side for a mile round; it had come nigh to the deafening of Gilbert himself, for his ears tingled for many days. Fortunately no one had suffered any hurt; fortunately, also, the splendid mansion was too well built to suffer from so unwonted a shock. The lad had fallen into disgrace for a week afterwards and was forbidden to bring gunpowder into the house again. He regretted the foolish freak, but in his regret, and despite of the chastis.e.m.e.nt he received by order of his stern and offended grandfather, there was still a sort of boyish satisfaction in his heart--a satisfaction which arose from the fact that his shot had hit its intended mark.

Lady Betty smiled as, sitting by her son's bedside in view of the cannon, she remembered this long-past incident. She had come into the room in the early morning, and had dismissed Timothy Trollope, bidding him go and get some sleep and return when the household had risen.

Gilbert had slumbered during the whole time that she had been present with him, but at the sound of the opening of the door he had awakened, to find Timothy again at his side and his mother silently retreating on tiptoe.

"Ah, she hath gone, and I had hardly known she was here!" sighed Gilbert. "Go, summon her back, Tim--yet, no; let her not know that I am awake. 'Twill comfort her to think that I am still asleep. But I am sorry that she hath gone. I had meant to question her concerning this Uncle Jasper and his son. For what my mother doth say of them and think of them is certain to be true and just, whether her judgment be favourable or the reverse. Didst mark her demeanour towards them yesternight, Tim? Didst mark if she greeted them in friendly wise?"

"I marked little of anything, so much was I concerned as to your hurts, dear master," returned Timothy; "but in so far as I could see, her ladys.h.i.+p seemed to regard your uncle rather with annoyance than friends.h.i.+p, and to avoid his near presence as if she misliked his intrusion."

"And yet, if I mind aright, my mother hath ofttimes spoken of him as though she had known him pa.s.sing well," observed Gilbert, as he half-raised himself upon his uninjured arm.

Timothy strode slowly towards the window and looked out into the park.

"She knew him ere yet she was wedded," he said in a quiet decisive tone, "so at least my father hath told me. But peradventure 'twas only idle gossip."

"Gossip?" repeated Gilbert reprovingly. "Gossip about my mother?

Prithee, what said your father? Come, tell me, Tim."

"Nay, be not alarmed," said Timothy, turning for amoment from the window and looking his young master in the face. "'Twas only this, that when my lady was at Her Majesty's court in Richmond as one of Her Majesty's ladies-in-waiting, Jasper Oglander did woo her in the hope that she would wed him, and so cut out his brother, of whom, as thou knowest, he was bitterly jealous. My lady chose the better man to be her husband, and Master Jasper departed across the seas to forget his disappointment in foreign lands."

"Tut! There is naught in that," rejoined Gilbert with a light laugh.

"'Tis in no wise surprising that Jasper Oglander or any other man should admire my mother. Doth not all England admire her? Have not a full score of our best poets penned sonnets in her praise? Out upon thee, Timothy, out upon thee!"

"Well, howsoever it be," said Timothy as he gave his head a careless toss and stood with his thumbs in his belt at the window; "howsoever it be, I like not the man myself. He is a braggart, of that I am sure, and there is a look in his eyes that doth betoken deceitfulness."

"Thy opinion in the matter of people's characters is seldom to be depended upon, Tim," remarked Gilbert, a.s.suming the gravity of worldly wisdom. "Thou dost trust overmuch to instinct and too little to a knowledge of the world. 'Tis a brute dog's method."

Timothy strode to the bedside and sat down on the chair that Lady Betty had lately left. He crossed his legs and was silent for a few moments.

"'Tis true I have not travelled as thou hast done, Master Gilbert, nor been to a great public school to learn Latin and Greek as thou hast been. But methinks a brute dog's instinct may yet sometimes be trusted; and I have even known the dog Nero to be right in his discernment of men when thou and I have failed. Howbeit, 'tis not for me, who am but a servant, to say ought in disparagement of your wors.h.i.+pful uncle, who may, after all, be a very proper gentleman; and I do humbly beseech your pardon, sir, for having said so much as I have already done."

There was a light knock at the door. Tim started to his feet.

"Wilt let us enter, Gilbert?" asked Drusilla in a half-whisper as though she feared to disturb her brother. "Uncle Jasper and Cousin Philip are here, and they would be better known to thee."

Timothy opened the door and they entered.

"I fear that we disturb thee, Master Gilbert," began Jasper Oglander in a soft, tender voice, when the greetings had been exchanged. "But we were anxious, as thou mayest be sure, to make thy good acquaintance, as we have already made that of thy sweet sister."

"Thou art right welcome, Uncle Jasper; and thou too, Cousin Philip,"

said Gilbert with hearty candour. "Ay, sit you upon the bed, Drusilla,"

he added, turning to Drusilla. "But see you come not too near to my lame foot, for 'tis easily hurt. I am like our grandfather now, when he is troubled with his gout."

"Ah! doth the old gentleman suffer much with that complaint, then?" said Jasper in a tone of sympathetic interest; and, without pausing for an answer, he went on: "'Tis old age creeping upon him, I doubt. Let me see--ay--he must be well upon threescore years and ten. But he hath led a busy life, what with wars, and parliaments, and missions of state, and religious controversy; 'tis little wonder that his hairs are silvered.

But I thank G.o.d and the saints that I find him looking so hale and well."

"_The saints_, Uncle Jasper?" cried Drusilla, noticing this slip of the tongue. "Is it not enough to thank G.o.d alone?"

"Nay, I meant not that, of course," said Jasper, growing very red in the face, yet pa.s.sing the matter off with a careless laugh. "You see, in my travels in foreign countries I have come so much in contact with Spaniards and others of the Romish faith that I have, as it were, acquired insensibly their habit of mentioning the saints, to whom they do so constantly appeal."

"Yes, I have heard them oftentimes," said Gilbert; "for there be many Spanish Papists at this present time in Plymouth. Prisoners of war they are--although it seemeth vain to call them prisoners, for they do go about the streets with freedom, and are little different from other men saving that they are not permitted to carry arms."

"They would speedily find that they were prisoners indeed, if they did but attempt to escape from our sh.o.r.es, however," interposed Timothy Trollope.

Jasper Oglander seemed to take a lively interest in this particular subject.

"Prithee, what is their number, and how came they to be prisoners in England?" he asked of his nephew.

"I know not truly how many there be," answered Gilbert; "a good two score, I should say. They were taken on board of the Spanish galleon _Nuestra Senora del Rosario_, the flags.h.i.+p of Don Pedro de Valdes, who surrendered to Francis Drake at the time of the Armada fight. Many of their companions were sent back to Spain, but these remain in Plymouth, for I know not what reason other than that Queen Elizabeth hath not chosen to liberate them."

Having learned so much, Jasper hastened to change the subject.

"I have been told," he said, "that you received your injuries yesternight in rescuing one Jacob Hartop, an aged mariner who, as it chanceth, came home with us from the Indies. Was he, too, wounded in this encounter?"

Gilbert turned to Timothy, and Timothy answered:

"No, your wors.h.i.+p; he was but robbed."

"H'm! the thieves can have gained but sorry booty from so impoverished a prey," remarked Jasper, with a derisive sneer. "Poor crazed creature, he was scarce worth the room he occupied aboard our s.h.i.+p! And, indeed, we should never have consented to bring him but that we were short-handed, and he so earnestly craved for his pa.s.sage back to England, and so we gave him a berth out of mere compa.s.sionate charity."

"Haply, too, you had been acquainted with the man in former years?"

suggested Gilbert.

Jasper glanced in quick apprehension at his nephew, as if questioning whether the lad spoke from knowledge or only at random.

"No, faith, no," he answered, with seeming indifference. "I have but known him during our late voyage."

Then Timothy Trollope--remembering how Philip had made inquiry of him concerning Hartop; remembering, too, how speedily the attack upon the old seafarer had followed upon his own meeting with Philip Oglander in the town--ventured to address the two visitors thus:

"I have been thinking," said he, looking from Jasper to Philip and back again to Jasper, "that 'tis pa.s.sing strange you neither saw nor heard aught of this encounter. You set out from Plymouth at close upon five o'clock, or only a brief time before my master and I started for home.

You could scarce have arrived at the manor-house very much in advance of us. 'Tis plain, therefore, that you were at no great distance from Beddington Dingle at the moment when this thing befell. And yet it seemeth that you knew naught of the matter until Master Gilbert was carried wounded into the dining-hall."

While Timothy spoke Jasper's fingers were idly playing with the fringe of Gilbert's counterpane. He glanced upward with a composure which at once dispelled all Timothy's doubts, and remarked with so much seeming candour that there was no gainsaying the truth of his statement:

"That same question hath already occurred to me," said he; "and, indeed, had we chanced to come by that same road I doubt not that we should certainly have pa.s.sed your robbers by the way. Peradventure we might even have been near enough at hand to render you some timely aid in overcoming the rascals. But it so happened that we journeyed by the longer way of the main road instead of taking the short cut by the Beddington Lane."

"Would that you had indeed been near, uncle!" said Drusilla, as she sat at the foot of the bed, her two hands stretched out clasping the carved oak rail against which her back was resting. "For apart from yourself, who are, as it seemeth, a man of war, I am well a.s.sured that Cousin Philip is a master of fence. I saw his long rapier yesternight. 'Tis such a weapon as surely none but the skilfullest swordsman could handle."

"Ay, 'tis a pretty enough blade," returned Jasper carelessly; "but more for ornament, I do a.s.sure you, than for use, Mistress Drusilla. As for Philip, he is a sorry hand at such matters. In fencing, as in many other arts that I have wished him to exercise, he is in truth a very dullard and bungler."

Philip Oglander smiled, with his tongue in his cheek.

"Marry, father, but thou art giving me an over-true character," said he, modestly hanging his head. "My cousins will think me a dunce indeed if you herald me thus. But when Cousin Gilbert hath recovered from his injuries, as I do pray that he speedily may, I will ask him to give me a few lessons in the use of the rapier."