The Golden Galleon Part 7

"Listen!" interrupted Timothy. "Hear you not the sound of horses' feet upon the road? 'Tis surely our robbers, riding away."

"I hear them plainly," returned Hartop. "There be two horses, as I judge by the sound. And, far from retreating, they are coming nearer and nearer. I pray Heaven that they be friends who will help us!"

Gilbert Oglander had now somewhat recovered from his faintness, and with the help of his two companions he limped to the side of the road, where, sitting on the edge of the ditch, he at length succeeded in pulling off his boot, for his ankle had been badly sprained and was already somewhat swollen.

The three waited there in silence at the roadside until the hors.e.m.e.n whom they had heard approaching came within a few yards of them, when Timothy Trollope stepped out in front of them, and waving his hands aloft called aloud to them to halt. His call was not needed, however, for the hors.e.m.e.n had already drawn rein.

"So-ho!" cried one of them as he unsheathed his sword, and spurring his horse again he drove the animal on as if to run Timothy down. "We have caught you, you rascals, have we?" he cried with an oath. "We shall teach you better than to go about a-pillaging of honest folks' farmyards and carrying off their ducks and hens! 'Tis Plymouth gaol that shall be your lodging to-night if I be not vastly in error." He turned to his companion, "Now, Jake," he ordered, "look you to those two in the ditch there! See that they escape not into the wood."

Timothy sprang forward and seized the horse's bridle.

"Hold hard, Bob Harvey," he cried, addressing the rider. "Have a care where y'are driving your horse. Can you not see who we are, man? Here be Master Oglander, bleeding and well-nigh dead of a great sword-cut given him by a thief of a footpad but a few minutes since."

"Od's life, Master Tim, is't yourself then?" cried the horseman drawing back. "Faith, lad, I had nearly run you through. What bringeth you here at such an hour? And Master Gilbert wounded, say you?--and by footpads?

Prithee, how many were there? I'll be sworn 'twas the self-same gang that we are now seeking."

"There were three of them," answered Timothy. "And after robbing this poor old man here and wounding Master Gilbert they made off through Beddington Woods."

"Ay, three there were at the Manor Farm. I warrant me, they are the same lot," declared Bob Harvey. Then he added, turning to his follower, "Come, Jake, we may catch them yet if so be we gallop round to the other road." And he dug his spurs into his horse's side.

"Stay!" cried Timothy, gripping the reins. "Thou'dst best dismount, Bob, and give up thy horse to the young master; or else take him up beside thee and ride home with him. As for the thieves, or poachers, or whatever they be, Jake Thew may continue the chase alone."

"As you will, Master Timothy," returned Harvey; "but methinks Master Gilbert had better get up in front of me. 'Tis an ill-mannered animal this, and hard to manage."

So Gilbert Oglander mounted on the horse's back and rode slowly homeward, while the second horseman galloped off alone along the lane in the direction of the town. Timothy intended to go home afoot, running all the way by his master's side, but ere he started off he turned to Jacob Hartop.

"And now, Master Hartop," said he, "prithee, where go you to-night? Hast got a home in these parts?"

Jacob was silent for some moments. At last he said:

"I had meant to rest myself at Southam's Mill, where they have daily expected me these twenty years and more. But if, as you say, the mill hath been burnt down, why, then, there is not a house in the land that I can call my home. Howbeit, I doubt not I shall find goodly shelter under the lee of some friendly haystack. 'Twill not be the first, no, nor the hundredth time that I have slept in the open air. And believe me, my master, he is a happy man who hath none to thank for his food and shelter saving only his G.o.d."

"I do perceive that thou art an easily contented mortal," remarked Timothy with a ring of sympathy in his voice.

"Privation hath made me so," returned Hartop.

"Nevertheless," pursued Tim, "you will, so please you, think no more of the haystack, but come on to the manor of Modbury; for sure I am that Master Oglander would blame me most severely were I to suffer you to go adrift like a lost creature."

Hartop answered very seriously and firmly: "Were there no other house in all England, my master, I should still refuse to take shelter in the manor of Modbury."

"And wherefore?" asked Timothy in surprise.

"Because," returned the old mariner, "it is in that same house that my bitterest enemy doth live--Jasper Oglander to wit."

"Pooh!" rejoined Timothy. "Jasper Oglander is dead these many years."

"Not so," declared Hartop. "You, indeed, and many others may believe him dead. But in this matter, at the least, I make no mistake; for hark ye, my friend, Jasper Oglander is as much alive at this moment as you or I.

You and your young friend may not have known him--how should you?--but 'twas he whom you saw this very day coming ash.o.r.e from the s.h.i.+p _Pearl_; he and his wife and his son. If you should see him again,--as I doubt not you will ere many hours be past,--you shall know him by the token that he hath an old knife-cut across his cheek: a cut that was dealt to him by one whom he sought to treacherously murder."

CHAPTER VI

TABLE-TALK AT MODBURY MANOR.

At this same time, while Gilbert and Timothy were continuing their journey homeward through the darkness and the driving sleet after their encounter with the unknown robbers in Beddington Dingle, Lord Champernoun and his household were seated at the supper-table in the great dining-hall of Modbury Manor. Some friends were with them--high-born ladies and n.o.ble gentlemen who had been of a hawking party that day, and had come back very weary and full of the enjoyment of the sport. Chief among the ladies, both for her beauty and wit and for her n.o.ble birth, was the Lady Elizabeth Oglander--or Lady Betty, as she was familiarly called--who, as the widow of the Honourable Edmund Oglander, was now the mistress of Modbury Manor; and among the men, Sir Walter Raleigh and those two gallant seamen, Sir Francis Drake and Sir Richard Grenville.

It was a very large and splendid hall, with a high arched roof and tall embrasured windows, whose broad panes were rich with heraldic devices in coloured gla.s.s. The walls were panelled with carved oak and adorned with stags' horns, suits of armour, halberds, swords, and crossbows. The lower parts of the windows and the heavy clamped doors were covered with tapestry to keep out the draught, and in the huge red cavern of the fireplace the flaming logs roared and crackled, sending forth strange moving shadows across the rush-strewn floor, and casting a bright flicker of light upon the wings of the bra.s.s pelicans that stood gazing out from either side of the hearth.

At the head of the long table sat the aged baron himself, Gilbert Oglander's grandfather, a kindly, white-haired, white-bearded gentleman, wearing a doublet of black velvet with gold chains and a snowy white ruff. His guests and the members of his household were all grown-up persons, with the one exception of Drusilla Oglander; and Drusilla, who was still scarce more than a little girl and had but lately left the nursery, seemed to be very lonely in consequence. She had no companion near her at the table saving the family bloodhound, Nero, whose ponderous head rested upon her knee, ready to gobble such morsels of meat as the girl might pick from her plate and give to him. There was a vacant seat at her side, but her brother Gilbert, who had gone into Plymouth that afternoon, had not returned to occupy it, and she was perforce content to listen silently to the talk that was going on among her elders at the upper end of the table. Yet quite as often did she find entertainment in listening to the men and women who sat below the great salt-cellar--the barrier which separated them from those who were above them in station.

One of the men, a rosy-faced young falconer who had been with the hawking party, was boasting of how Sir Walter Raleigh had deigned to hold speech with him, and to ask his opinion concerning the possibility of stopping a falcon in its full flight and making the bird return obediently to the lure. The fact that the great courtier had thus honoured him seemed to have given the man the right to speak with authority on all matters with which Sir Walter Raleigh was personally concerned.

"Wait until the meal is over," Drusilla heard him say; "wait and you shall see him taking tobacco. 'Tis a wonderous sight, my masters. I have seen him at it with mine own eyes. He can blow the smoke out through his nostrils in two long tubes, or drink it down into his inside as one might drink a cup of malmsey. Ay, 'tis a marvellous habit, is it not, Christopher Pym?"

He glanced across the table at a pale, abstracted-looking man, with straight black hair and lack-l.u.s.tre eyes. Christopher Pym seemed to feel himself out of place among these his table companions, for in spite of his threadbare cloak and his ragged wristbands he was still a ripe scholar and a born gentleman. He smiled faintly and answered:

"Ay, truly, Master Hawksworth, 'tis a marvellous habit--marvellous in that it is indulged in by gentlefolk. For my own part, I like it not. As well might you make a chimney of your throat at once, and call in the chimney-sweep o' mornings to sweep out the black soot."

"'Tis plain to see that thou hast never tried it," remarked Hawksworth.

"But after all, 'twas never intended for poor schoolmasters."

Christopher Pym quietly broke off a few crumbs from his piece of bread, and holding them in his thin fingers proceeded slowly to cleanse his platter.

"No," he said with another faint smile. "There be few such luxuries that a poor tutor can afford out of five marks a year. But I am well content to live without the vile herb and let others take it who may."

"'Tis a right gentlemanly accomplishment, I warrant you," pursued Hawksworth; "ay, and one which may gain a man great fame if he but exercise it with skill. Look at young Sir Anthony Killigrew, for example; he hath made himself famous in Plymouth by his skill, for he can not only blow the smoke from his nose, but he hath performed a much more wondrous trick; for on a day in last week he took three long whiffs from his tobacco-pipe, drank three cups of canary on the top of them, then took horse, and brought forth the smoke, one whiff at Burrington, the second at Bickley, and the third at Tamerton. 'Twas he who first taught Master Gilbert Oglander to drink tobacco, although 'tis true the lad misliked it and hath since abandoned it."

"Master Gilbert hath shown greater wisdom in abandoning it than in taking to it," observed Christopher Pym, shaking his head with regret at his pupil's weakness.

Hearing her brother's name, Drusilla leaned over across the salt-box and said:

"I pray you, Master Pym, can you tell me what hath kept my brother so late in Plymouth?"

"My lord sent him into the town on some private business, Mistress Drusilla," answered the poor tutor. "I know of naught else that can have detained him. He hath taken Timothy Trollope to bear him company, however, and you may be a.s.sured no harm will come to him."

Drusilla leaned back in her chair, refusing the plate of roasted pheasant that was offered to her by one of the blue-coated serving-men.

Her eyes rested upon the cheerful countenance of Sir Francis Drake, and then upon the proud cold face of Sir Walter Raleigh, who sat next to him. She had never, before this same day, seen Sir Walter Raleigh, and his courtly manners seemed somehow to give him a dignity which made it that she dared not have approached him. Even his gay apparel, his jewelled doublet, his stiffly-starched ruff, and his white be-ringed fingers placed him at such a distance from her that he appeared to be far too grand and proud ever to think of taking notice of a little girl.

With Sir Francis Drake it was very different. She had known him to come to Modbury more than once on purpose to see her, as he had said; he had come into the nursery and played with her and told her stories; and once, when Gilbert had been making a toy s.h.i.+p to sail in the lake, Sir Francis had sat down on the nursery floor and taken out his knife and some string and helped to rig the little vessel. They had called the boat the _Revenge_, which was the name of the s.h.i.+p that Sir Francis had commanded when he went out to fight against the Spanish Armada, and on board of which he had won such glory for himself and for England. As Drusilla looked across at him now his eyes met hers, and he raised his tall gla.s.s of canary wine, bowing to her with as much polite grace as if she had been a full-grown lady. She returned his greeting with a smile, raising her little silver tankard of new milk and saying:

"To your good health, Sir Francis."

Then the voice of Lord Champernoun was heard from the head of the table.

"So it seemeth, Sir Francis, that thou hast once more been incurring Her Majesty's displeasure?"