Sea-Dogs All! Part 14

"Master Jeffreys shall make them clear; he hath a better gift of words than I."

So the Devon man retold the story of John Oxenham's voyage; and he added many strange things that lie had heard from other Plymouth men who had gone to the Indies, and whom he had met in Raleigh's company.

He himself had gone westwards to Virginia, and other parts of the American mainland, and could relate wonders from his own experiences.

He talked for full two hours, and both Mrs. Stowe and Dorothy stole in to listen.

The next day Paignton Rob and his two stranded comrades found themselves seated at Mistress Stowe's table to dinner. Morgan and the captain hung about the aisles of St. Paul's for more than an hour, waiting in the hope that the sailors would appear. Jeffreys went down to Whitehall, found them in the neighbourhood of Raleigh's lodgings, and brought them into the city.

The three derelict mariners were not slow to divine one reason for the pressing invitation that had brought them hot-foot from Whitehall to Wood Street. Rob's story of the fabled Spanish Main had opened Mistress Stowe's door to such dilapidated guests; it would have opened hundreds of other English doors to the maimed adventurers. The whole country was smitten with the fever of travel, and possessed with the l.u.s.t for wealth and conquest. Men and women believed strange things of the wonderful western world, and they listened eagerly and without question to things their great-grandchildren would scoff at.

A travelled sailor can fit himself into any company. Paignton Rob adjusted himself with the greatest nicety into his proper position that day. He ate and drank to repletion, praising every dish without stint, and paying his hostess such daring compliments that her round face was a very sunset of blushes.

Nick and Ned Johnson played their accustomed part of chorus, and just said "ay, ay" at the proper time and place. And Rob did not keep his audience too long waiting for his stories. He described the tropical seas--their storms and calms, their fish that flew, and the fearsome monsters that gambolled along their surface. He took his hearers into the gloomy forests, with their myriad forms of life, their gaudy birds and gorgeous insects, their lurking beasts and dense-packed horrors.

Weird cries and terrifying howls rang out in imaginative sounds. And what horrific beings stalked in the dim alleys betwixt the giant trees, or peeped forth at the intrepid traveller from cave and den!

One-horned beasts with fiery hoofs; dragons that had wings of bra.s.s, and vomited flames from cavernous throats; huge birds, enormous reptiles, flew or crawled in their appointed places. Two-headed men wielded clubs of stone; men with no heads at all, but one great eye in the centre of their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, glared malevolently from the pits wherein they had their habitation. The little company in the tavern parlour shivered with affright, and cast uneasy glances at the doorway.

Then--wonderful Rob!--a sinewy, thumbless hand swept the air like an enchanter's wand, and lo! the scene was changed. Gloom and horror fled, the forest vanished, the malodorous swamp gave place to smiling meadow. The hills frowned no longer, but laughed with fertility and sparkled with a thousand fairy rills and cascades. Fair cities encircled their bases, and golden temples glittered in the ardent, tropical sunshine. Brown-skinned, gentle people flitted gracefully along the streets and through the squares. Music, barbaric but melodious, hummed through the fragrant air. Here was the paradise of dreams--bright colours, sweet sounds, fragrant odours, gentle beings, fair peace, and jocund plenty! Rob was a poet, and his audience panted with parting lips as he spread the scene before them.

Then he brought them nearer. See yonder roof?--plates of beaten gold!

Yonder mule hath harness of exquisitely chased silver! Here comes a n.o.ble chief and his favourite wife, with a retinue of slaves. The soles of his sandals are of gold, the straps are studded with gems; pearls are sewn in hundreds in his bright-hued robes! Yet is he completely eclipsed by the splendour of his spouse. She is sprinkled, hair and clothing, with the precious yellow dust. The breeze blows it from her hair; she shakes it with a careless laugh from her silken garments; the slaves walk behind on a gold-strewn pathway. They value it no more than the beggar values the dust that blows along the Chepe in London on a July day. Ah! a gloriously generous headpiece hath Paignton Rob. Why stint the tale of glittering grains? In the land of "El Dorado" the sands of the rivers can be coined into minted money.

Would mine hostess--who has so lavishly fed three poor sailor-men--like to go to a banquet in the palace of "El Dorado"? Nothing simpler!--'tis done with a wave of Rob's brown hand. See! the table is gold; the platters are the same. The pillars of sweet cedar that support the lofty roof are richer by far than those of Solomon's temple. And the "gilded one" smiles at his queen, and lifts a cup of rosy wine to his lips. Do the company notice that miracle of dazzling light he holds in his delicate brown hand? 'Tis cut from one precious stone. It is like a living fire, and the red wine glows warmly through it.

Such the land of "El Dorado"--the golden realm!--the home of an everlasting summer! Rob pauses dramatically; he comes to a full stop.

How mean is the parlour of the comfortable Wood Street tavern! How paltry its pewter pots and clumsy flagons! How dull its smoky beams and walls!

"Ah! Ah!"--longing sighs echo and re-echo. Then come questions, timidly put at first, for no man would dare to throw suspicion on the seaman's stories. But--but who has seen any of these things?

Who? Why, Rob knows men, who know other men, who have heard from other men, who actually listened to dying Spaniards or faithful natives recounting how they themselves had seen these sights. Rob himself had gazed upon a sack of gold dust brought by a Jesuit missionary from "El Dorado's" kingdom. The monk had shovelled it with his own bare hands from the bed of a shallow lake. Nick Johnson, with a nervous and apologetic cough, announced that he had seen a bag of pearls brought from that same favoured land; and brother Ned, whose memory also got some stimulus from Rob's stories, related how lie met a Spanish prisoner in a Dutch town, who told him that the pebbles in "El Dorado's" land were all pearls or jewels, sometimes one, sometimes the other--just according to the haphazard luck of the thing. Then honest Rob took some more sack, and found that he distinctly remembered meeting a Bideford man on Plymouth Hoe who had sailed with a Bristol captain whose twin brother had shot a no-headed, breast-eyed monster, and had immediately afterwards been stunned by the stone club of a two-headed gentleman of those same parts. 'Twas an exciting adventure altogether, and Rob proceeded to remember the details and relate them.

As for the forests, the swamps, the lurking reptiles and ravenous beasts, the huge crabs, venomous snakes, and the fevered ghosts and ghouls that wreathed up after sunset from the pools and rivers--why!

Rob had seen all those things for himself. He had also handled bars of gold and lumps of silver, and let pearls run through his fingers like beads. Captain Dawe, Master Morgan, and the ladies might be a.s.sured that they had heard but a t.i.the of the wonders and horrors that might be told them. Ah! that wonderful New World! Brave Rob shook the head that was bereft of an ear. He had talked to them for three hours, but he had no gift of speech, and had been unable to give them any real idea of the glamour and mystery that lay beneath the setting sun.

Nevertheless, he had set each heart and brain pulsing and throbbing with wild dreams. The world was changing for Johnnie Morgan. The admiral and Raleigh had opened his eyes in the glades of the forest, and taught him to look beyond its treetops. Master Jeffreys had extended his view, and all men and all things in London Town seemed to probe deeper into his mind, and find new emotions and desires, and stir them into active life. The grim old Forest of Dean was dwarfing to a mere coppice; the rushing Severn was becoming an insignificant brook.

The forester's heart was expanding; his eyes were opening; his arms were stretching forth to grasp that which was finite, yet infinite. He dreamed strange dreams; his eyes started open to behold wondrous visions. The fever of the time was getting into his blood. Vague, half-understood impulses moved him hither and thither. He groped, and touched nothing. He cried out, "What do I want?"

A woman answered the question the very next day.

Chapter XXI.

MORGAN GOES TO WHITEHALL.

In the early forenoon of the next day a man in the livery of Sir Walter came to "Ye Swanne" and asked for Master Morgan. He brought a command that the forester was to repair instantly to Whitehall, as the Queen had intimated that she would see him in the afternoon. The summons threw Johnnie into a small fever of nervous apprehension, and he wished heartily that he had never left his snug homestead at Blakeney. His fingers turned into thumbs, and Dorothy busied herself in fastening points and laces, adjusting his ruff, and setting his cap at the proper angle. Captain Dawe found that sword and belt required his critical attention, and Master Jeffreys started a most elaborate dissertation on court etiquette in "the most polite court in Europe." Johnnie's head buzzed, his mind wandered in a maze; and when at last he stepped out into the sunshine of the streets, he confessed to Mistress Stowe that he felt "like a thief going to be hanged." Captain Dawe had a desire to see the royal palace and its precincts, Jeffreys was wanted at Raleigh's lodgings, so all four gentlemen went westwards.

Along Chepe, through St. Paul's Churchyard, down the hill to the Lud Gate lay their way. Then they crossed the Fleet River and stepped out into Fleet Street. On their left was the palace of Bridewell, stretching down to the green margin of the Thames; on their right the fields went northwards to the villages of Bloomsbury, Clerkenwell, and Islington. The street was thick with dust and crowded with pedestrians and hors.e.m.e.n. Staid burghers walked soberly along, fops strutted, bullies swaggered, gentlefolks went in fitting dignity, and beggars whined for alms at the corners of the narrow lanes that, between the houses, led down to the river. Law students from the Temple were to be met with, chaffering with the market wenches for nuts and apples and bunches of flowers.

Master Jeffreys took charge of Morgan, and fed him full with information. "A wonderful thoroughfare, good sir!" he cried; "its dust hath been pressed by the feet of notable folk for many centuries, and will take the footprints of the great ones for many centuries to come.

'Tis the highway between our two ancient cities of London and Westminster. We will keep to the south side, for it is the more famous, and contains the houses of many of our n.o.bles. The north side is left for the shopkeepers and smaller gentry. We have just pa.s.sed the royal palace of Bridewell, and from here every foot of our way will have something to interest the curious and inquiring mind."

Johnnie stared down at the gray old palace, and looked questioningly at the ruins that lay next to it on the east.

"All that's left of the monastery of the Whitefriars," said Jeffreys.

"The remains of monkish buildings c.u.mber the ground outside of London walls as well as within. Some say 'twas a wicked thing to pull down so many fair edifices; others declare they were no better than plague-spots and heretical hovels on the fair face of a Protestant country, and that we are well rid of them."

"I have noticed," said Morgan, "that royal favourites from King Harry's time onwards have done most of the pulling down. The common folk appear to have had little voice in the matter, and not a finger in the lifting of the plunder."

"Quite so! quite so! Now let us step into the roadway. 'Tis dusty enough, and not innocent of some ugly holes, but 'tis safer for a little while. See those hangdog-looking fellows slouching before us?

Ah! I need not tell thee what they are. Step out; let's see the sport."

There was a wild _melee_ about a hundred yards ahead. A fellow had made a cut with his dagger at a lady's purse, and had been promptly knocked down by her cavalier. At the sound of the would-be robber's cry a dozen other rascals had rushed to his aid, and from the narrow lanes and alleys a horde of ruffians--male and female--had been vomited. They set upon the lady and her companion with cudgels and knives, and the gentleman was already lying in the dust. Peace-loving pedestrians had rushed to their aid, and a group of law students bore down into the fray in gallant style. Master Jeffreys whipped out his blade and ran, and Morgan went with him stride for stride. But the mob of ruffians disappeared as quickly as it had come forth; the cutpurse had been rescued, and the plunder he desired s.n.a.t.c.hed by a slatternly wench.

Morgan uttered a hunting cry, and was dashing down a dim pa.s.sage between two houses when Jeffreys jerked him back. "Not a foot farther if thou dost value thy life!"

Johnnie stopped, and saw in astonishment that no man was attempting pursuit.

"Are they to escape red-handed?" he cried.

His companion shrugged his shoulders. "He'd be an over-bold man who'd venture into the alleys and courts of Alsatia with less than fifty good swords at his back. The hangman would be busy for a month if all who merited his rope were dragged out of yonder dens. But we must be going; the captain is almost out of sight, and thou hast matters on hand that are of greater moment than the catching of a thief."

Walking on, the two came abreast of the Temple, and lawyers, scriveners, clerks, and students dotted the roadway.

"A sweetly built place is the Temple," commented Jeffreys: "cool alleys shaded with trees, s.p.a.cious courts, goodly halls and chapels; fair gardens sloping sunnily and warmly to the south and the river. Ah!

there is no fairer site on earth for a fine dwelling than on this bank of Father Thames. Thou wilt see by the great houses that we shall pa.s.s how many men are of my opinion."

Morgan came to Temple Bar, and saw, with a shudder, a row of mouldering heads atop of it. He pa.s.sed beneath the archway and put foot in the famous Strand. Immediately before him the Maypole stretched skyward, its top still ornamented with a few fluttering rags of weather-bleached ribbon, mementoes of the festivities that had ushered in the fast-fading summer. On his left, with its front to the river, was a great house with its courts and gardens, and Master Jeffreys whispered,--

"The town house of my Lord Ess.e.x, the Queen's favourite and the great rival of the gallant knight we both love."

Morgan stood and gazed at the somewhat ugly pile with the greatest interest.

As he moved on a cleanly lad came across the road, with a shining pannikin in either hand, and asked politely whether "their worships"

would care to quench their thirst in water drawn from the well of St.

Clement or from Holy Well that was hard by.

"Which is the more precious liquid?" asked Morgan.

The lad quickly replied that he had no opinion, and that learned men and excellent divines could come to no agreement over the matter. His worship might drink of both and judge for himself; the charge was but a farthing.

"Cheaper than Mistress Stowe's sack, at any rate, if not so palatable,"

said Johnnie. He gave the lad a farthing and took the Holy Well pannikin, whilst his companion drained that which owned its virtues to the sanct.i.ty of St. Clement, whose church fronted them across the way.

As neither tasted of both, they had, like the water-seller, no opinion as to the merits of the rival wells.

They walked on past Somerset House.

"A stately pile," said Morgan.

"Fairer even than Whitehall," replied Jeffreys. "'Twas built by an arch-robber, but the Queen favours it and dwells in it at times. 'Tis the goodliest palace along the Strand."

The Savoy, already centuries old and crumbling to decay, was pa.s.sed; and then, by other n.o.ble edifices, the wayfarers went to the village of Charing.