The Golden Galleon Part 2

"Come, Captain Grenville," said she, taking Sir Richard by the arm and dragging him under the shadow of one of the beech-trees. "Y'are standing in the middle of the sea where you are. We are about to play at a great sea-fight, and you are to be the Spanish fleet."

It was strange to see the tall strong man being led about by this little girl and made to do her bidding as if she had been his sovereign queen.

"Even as you list, good my mistress," said he with a docile submission which was hardly to be expected in one who had the reputation of being a cruel and relentless warrior. "I am willing to enact whatsoever part you please; only, if, as I suspect, I am to be the Armada, as you made me on the other occasion when you brought me to such disaster, I do beseech you to excuse me the long voyage round the islands of Orkney, for my limbs are scarce equal to the journey this morning."

"You shall take what part you choose," interposed Gilbert Oglander, standing at his sister's side and glancing up into Sir Richard Grenville's twinkling gray eyes.

Gilbert was a boy of thirteen years old, very agile and active. His hair was very dark, and its darkness made his skin seem all the more fair and clear. In stature he was not very tall for his age, but his limbs were sinewy and strong, and one could see at a glance that he was of gentle birth, that he had lived much of his life in the open air, and that he was well fitted to endure all manner of fatigue.

"You shall take what part you choose," said he.

"Why, then, an that be so," returned Captain Grenville, "I will choose to be Don Hugo de Moncada's great gallea.s.s, for then I may lie and rest me on Calais beach and thus be out of the action, as she was when she ran aground."

"Yes," agreed Drusilla; "but first you must be the whole Spanish fleet, anch.o.r.ed in Calais Roads. Master Pym will help you to make a show of numbers, while Gilbert will, of course, be Sir Francis Drake on board the _Revenge_, and Sir Martin Frobisher on board the _Triumph_, and whichever other of our English admirals he doth care to be. I am myself to be the lord admiral's flag-ship."

"And, prithee, what ship or squadron of ships doth young Timothy Trollope represent?" questioned Sir Richard Grenville. "Surely you will not scorn so useful an addition to the game?"

"We had best make Timothy enact the part of the English fire-ships,"

suggested Christopher Pym, smiling as his eyes rested upon the lad's bright red hair. And at his suggestion Drusilla clapped her hands together and cried "Yes, he shall be the fire-ships!"

And she forthwith proceeded to point out to her strangely-a.s.sorted playmates how the wide stretch of gra.s.s in front of them was to be understood by them all to be the Narrow Seas, how the distant plantation where Timothy had gathered his herbs was to represent the French coast between Calais and Dunquerque, and how the embankment of the fish-pond was to be Calais Roads. The higher ground under the beech-trees where the five were now standing was to be looked upon as the Kentish cliffs.

These matters being arranged to the understanding of all, the Spanish Armada, in the persons of Sir Richard Grenville and Master Christopher Pym, sailed obediently up the English Channel, pursued at no great distance by the English flag-ship and her consorts, who a.s.sailed their enemy with round after round of heavy shot, discharged from their chase-guns. There was one very tremendous engagement between Frobisher's _Triumph_ and the Spanish _Santa Anna_, which presently grew into a general conflict in which many ships were sunk. Then the Spaniards, much crippled in the fray, were permitted to sail on again, only to be again pursued by their persistent foes. The English ships bore down upon them, and then, being within easy range, luffed up and poured their broadsides into the enemy's hulls with relentless fury. But the Armada looked always as formidable as ever, and again and again they formed themselves in line of battle, to endure yet again the prolonged fire of the English guns.

At last the Queen's fleet fell back and allowed the Spaniards to sail on in calm security to their desired refuge in Calais Roads. When, as they imagined, they were at a safe anchorage and hoped to repair the damages of battle (for in truth Sir Richard Grenville had received some surprising buffetings at the hands of Drusilla and Gilbert Oglander, to say nothing of Master Pym, whose wide-brimmed hat lay abandoned in mid-channel), the English ships drew near with the fell purpose of dislodging the enemy and driving them out into the open sea. And when night was supposed to have fallen, the lord-admiral and Sir Francis Drake put their woolly heads together in warlike conference and decided to send forth their fire-ships into the midst of the galleons.

Timothy Trollope received his instructions, and straightway drifted into the bay, waving his hands aloft like leaping flames. His near approach threatened to spread disaster among the ships of Spain, and at a given signal from the _San Martin_ the dons all slipped their anchors, and in a confusion of panic endeavoured to make an escape. In the panic the great gallea.s.s of Don Hugo de Moncada ran aground on the sands and there lay basking in the sun, an unconcerned witness of the conflict that ensued between Pym and Trollope, who had now turned Spaniard, on the one side and Drusilla and her brother on the other.

Drusilla was bent upon carrying through the mimic fight to the battle of Gravelines, and, drawing Gilbert apart, she allowed Timothy and Master Pym to sail out into the Channel for some distance before starting in pursuit. It seemed to Sir Richard Grenville as he watched them that there occurred some change in their tactics, for Gilbert Oglander, having made pretence of sinking some half-score of the Armada ships, suddenly drew off and approached a very tall tree that stood alone on a wide expanse of gra.s.s. The lad placed his hands on the tree-trunk, looked up into the leafy branches and presently began to climb upward.

"Peradventure he intends to a.s.sail the enemy from the tops with musket and arquebus," mused Sir Richard, and he continued to watch his young friend ascending from branch to branch. Up and up he climbed till he reached one of the topmost boughs, and then he lay out upon the stout branch and crept along it towards its more slender end. Suddenly he slipped. For a moment it seemed as if he were about to fall to the ground, some thirty feet below, but he caught the branch under his right arm, and remained there suspended.

Understanding the boy's danger, Captain Grenville quickly rose to his feet and ran towards the tree.

"Hold fast!" he cried as he got to the foot of the tree.

Gilbert raised himself a few inches until he could catch hold of the bough with his second hand, and there he hung, calling aloud for help.

Sir Richard gripped the tree and was about to make the attempt to climb up to the boy's rescue, when his shoulders were seized by a pair of hands, someone leapt upon his back and clambered over him, crushing him down under two heavy boots. When the weight was removed from him he looked up and saw young Timothy Trollope scaling the tree with astonishing speed.

"Help! help! or I shall fall!" cried Gilbert Oglander.

"Hold but another moment," returned Timothy; and ascending to the branch from which Gilbert was hanging he worked his way along it, and, leaning over like a very monkey, caught the lad in his one strong right arm and raised him bodily up to a position of safety.

For some minutes the two lads sat astride the bough facing each other, speaking never a word.

"Certes," cried Gilbert at last, breaking the silence, "'twas a narrow escape that! I was as near as might be to falling."

"In sooth I believe you were," agreed Timothy; "and it had been a goodly fall whichever way you had landed."

"But for your timely help I should have been sorely hurt for a certainty," remarked Gilbert; and then after a brief pause he added: "Prithee, how shall I reward you withal?"

"Nay, I need no reward, and will take none," returned Timothy.

"Yea, but you shall have a suitable recompense; for it hath cost you something as I see," said Gilbert. "Look at your doublet, 'tis torn down the front. And you have scratched your face too."

Timothy examined into his own hurts and said with a careless smile:

"Tut! 'tis nothing. Both the rent and the scratch will easily mend; whereas if your worship had fallen to the ground it must surely have been a matter for the physician, and haply a month's idleness in your bed. And now, so please you, we will, if you are ready, climb down again, for Sir Richard Grenville is calling to you, bidding you tell him if you are hurt."

When the two had got down to the ground again, it was to find that Drusilla had run off to a farther end of the meadow, where a double row of giant trees marked the long avenue leading up from the lodge gates to Modbury Manor. From where he stood Timothy could hear the sound of horses' feet and the jingling of stirrups and harness. It was the hawking party returning from the chase, and not until he saw them among the trees of the avenue did he remember the resolve he had made a little while before, to seek out his lordship's steward and ask him for work in the stables. Turning to Master Gilbert Oglander, who was on the point of following Drusilla, Timothy ventured to say:

"I beg your honour's pardon, but since you were so gracious a moment ago as to offer me a favour in return for the slight help I gave you, I have a boon that I would ask of you."

"Name it," demanded Gilbert.

"Ay, name it, lad," urged Sir Richard Grenville, playfully slapping Tim on his broad back. "Thou'rt a deserving boy, that hath the makings of a man in him, and shalt have whatsoever boon thou dost name. So out with it, and be not over-modest in thy request."

Timothy's eyes rested still upon the handsome young countenance of Master Gilbert Oglander.

"'Tis this that I would crave," said he, "that you would by your favour help me to get work as a stable-boy or a shepherd or a falconer in his lordship your grandfather's service."

Gilbert Oglander nodded and said smilingly:

"Gladly will I do that for you, Master Trollope; ay, and more, for it seemeth to me you are fit for better work than to groom horses or to feed greedy hawks; and, moreover, I have taken somewhat of a fancy to you." He looked aside at Sir Richard Grenville. "What say you, Captain Grenville?" he questioned. "Dost think he'll do in the place of Will Leigh? Will is about to join Her Majesty's service, you know."

Thus appealed to, Sir Richard spoke very highly of Timothy Trollope, and added that he would himself see Lord Champernoun touching the matter.

And at this Timothy thanked them both and presently turned on his way back to Plymouth, overjoyed at the new prospect that had so unexpectedly opened out before him.

As he trudged homeward along the leafy lanes he sang over and over again the s.n.a.t.c.h of a song of the time:

"I would not be a serving-man To carry the cloak-bag still, Nor would I be a falconer The 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.

CHAPTER III.

THE MAN WITH THE SCARRED CHEEK.

On a 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."