The Golden Galleon Part 6

"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 Us...o...b.. 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 l.u.s.ty 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 bl.u.s.tering 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.

"Who thinks to strive against the stream, And for to sail without a mast, Or without compa.s.s cross the main, His travel is forlorn and waste; And so in cure of all his pain His travel is his chiefest gain.

"So he likewise, that goes about To please each eye and every ear, He needs to have, withouten doubt, A golden gift with him to bear; For ill report shall be his gain Though he bestow both toil and pain.

"G.o.d grant each man once to amend; G.o.d send us all a happy place; And let us pray unto the end That we may have our prince's grace: Amen, amen! so shall we gain A due reward for all our pain."

Thus he sang. And at the close of each verse he broke out into a lively chorus that echoed through the woods. Towards the last, however, he stopped very suddenly, and his melody presently gave place to a loud alarming cry for help.

"Thieves! Cut-purses!" he cried "Ah, had I but a sword!"

The two lads set off at once at a quick run in the direction whence the cry had come.

They had gone but fifty yards or so, when at a sharp turn in the lane they came upon some four men whose figures loomed darkly through the mist of falling snow. One of the men lay struggling on the ground trying to disentangle his head and arms from his cloak, while two of his a.s.sailants knelt over him, the one evidently robbing him of such valuables as he might have about him, the other with a dagger threateningly drawn. The fourth man stood apart, encouraging them in their evil work.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "TIMOTHY CAUGHT HIM BY THE NECK AND HURLED HIM BACK."]

Gilbert and Timothy understood in a moment what was going on. The victim of this night attack was doubtless the wayfarer whom they had heard but a few minutes before carolling his moral ditty; and these three vagabonds had fallen upon him from their ambush in the dingle, where they had probably waited with intent to waylay the first pa.s.ser-by and rob him.

"Out with your rapier, Master Gilbert!" cried Timothy as he drew his own weapon. "We must e'en rescue the man. Yet use your blade discreetly, for 'twill go ill with us if we do slay one of the rascals."

He flung himself upon the man nearest to him--the one with the drawn dagger,--caught him by the neck and hurled him back into the ditch.

Gilbert Oglander was about to deal in like manner with the other robber, when the third man, who had hitherto stood apart,--a very tall man, wearing a wide slouched hat and a long cloak,--sprang upon him and forced him back.

Timothy now stood over their fallen victim, guarding him while he struggled to his knees. In the meantime the one whom Tim had flung into the ditch had regained his feet and drawn his rapier. Wrapping the skirt of his cloak about his left arm, he leapt upon Gilbert Oglander. In the darkness Gilbert scarcely saw his intention, and might have been taken wholly unaware had not Timothy warned him at the right moment. Gilbert caught his adversary's rapier on his own blade and returned the attack.

The man facing him was small, lithe, and evidently well skilled in the use of his weapon. Bending his body forward, he stretched forth his cloaked left arm, thus shielding himself. Gilbert made a thrust at the man's right side, but with no greater result than to strike a spark of fire from the other's blade. In recovering his balance he felt his left foot slip upon a clod of snow; he fell forward, and at the same moment there was a sharp twinge of pain in the upper part of his right arm. His sword dropped from his grasp and he rolled over.

When he rose to his feet again he saw that the three robbers had escaped. Timothy, and the wayfarer who had been the cause of this encounter, were down in the ditch, peering through a dark gap in the bank by which the three vagabonds had made their way into the wood.

"The rascals! They have escaped us!" Timothy was saying. "Well, there is small harm done, and no one is hurt!"

"Small harm, say you?" cried the wayfarer, speaking now for the first time. "But they have robbed me--robbed me of all that I had in the world!"

"Your all cannot surely have been much, my friend, since you carried it with you so lightly," said Timothy. "There is little use in making such dole over a trifle."

"Ah, you do not know, you do not know!" said the other, pacing to and fro in his dire distress. "As well might they have taken my life as what they have gone off with."

Timothy searched into the man's face, yet saw nothing to enlighten him in the black darkness.

"Art thou of Plymouth?" he presently asked.

"That I am, my master," came the reply. "My name, sirs, is Jacob Hartop--Jacob Hartop that went out with John Hawkins in the year sixty-seven, and that hath now come home only to be waylaid and robbed by a parcel of villainous cut-purses that sprang upon me from among the trees yonder. I had not heard them behind me, for it chanced that, being somewhat lonesome on dry land, I fell to chanting a little song, as it were for company's sake. I warrant me the ruffians would not so have overpowered me had they not thrown my cloak over my eyes and mouth, and thus disabled me from defending myself."

He drew the garment about his shoulders, turning up its high collar round his neck. "'Tis a cloak that a kindly young gentleman gave unto me as I stepped ash.o.r.e," he went on. "Had I been without it I might have worsted my a.s.sailants; and yet had I not had it I must surely have been slain, for one of the villains stabbed at me with his dagger with intent to take my life, and by G.o.d's providence the blade, instead of entering my heart, struck upon one of these gay silver b.u.t.tons."

He paused and looked at Gilbert as the lad limped towards him. Even in the darkness he seemed to recognize him.

"Now, beshrew me if thou art not the self-same young gentleman who gave me the cloak," he cried in grateful surprise. Then, noticing that Gilbert walked lame, he added, "But thou art limping! Hast hurt thy leg in the scrimmage?"

Timothy glanced in alarm at his young master, and besought him to tell what injury he had received.

"I slipped on the snow," explained Gilbert, "and gave my foot a twist.

'Tis naught to speak of. Come, let us hasten home. Sir Francis Drake hath gone to spend the night with my grandfather and certain of his friends from London, and we may yet be in time to hear him relate some of his adventures ere he returns to Plymouth. I will take thy arm, Timothy, for my foot is paining me, and--".

He was about to tell that he had been wounded, but not wishing to alarm his companions, or perhaps a little ashamed of being defeated by a mere footpad, he kept the matter to himself.

"What do I hear?" exclaimed Jacob Hartop. "Didst thou not speak the name of Francis Drake--Sir Francis Drake? G.o.d be thanked! Then he is still alive, eh? And hath risen in the world since the days when he and I were shipmates? Sir Francis, forsooth! Well, he deserveth all the honours that a prince can bestow upon him. Right well do I mind the time when we were at Nombre de Dios. Ah! that was a time, my masters. But 'tis a long story. Whither are ye bound for?"

"We go to the manor-house of Modbury," answered Timothy.

"Ah! I know it well," returned Hartop as he trudged along the lane at Gilbert's right side. "'Tis my Lord Champernoun's place, and I doubt not you will both be in his lordship's service--pages in his household belike?" He did not wait for an answer to his last remark, but went on with a cheerfulness that was surprising in an old man; a man, moreover, who had just been robbed of all his worldly wealth: "Prithee, have they mended the old bell that hung in the little turret above the stables?

Ha, ha! 'Twas I that broke it, flinging a stone at a blue jay that was perched upon the weather-vane. Many are the apples and pears I stole from out the orchard there; ay, and the rabbits and pheasants I trapped i' the woods! His lordship had a Flanders mare by name Nancy, that he was wont to ride upon to London. She had a white star betwixt her eyes, and a most shrewish temper withal. None could ride her but his lordship and William Stevens; though 'tis true she would willingly eat an apple o' mornings from out my lady's hand. Is the animal still as full of her tricks as she used to be?"

"'Tis like enough that the animal is in her grave these twenty years, Master Hartop," said Timothy, smiling to himself at the old man's memory of a time long past.

"Ay, like enough, like enough," mused the old man. "Time doth slip by with astonishing speed--though, indeed, 'twas laggard enough in the galleys and in the prison of Cadiz."

"I pray you tarry a moment," interposed Gilbert, suppressing a groan of pain. "I cannot walk so fast. My ankle hurts me at every step. I beg you haul off my boot, Tim, to give me a few moments' ease. Come closer, Master Hartop, and let me lean on your shoulder."

The old man obeyed, while Timothy went down on his knees in the mud and tried, but with little success, to remove the offending boot. He was interrupted by a sudden cry from Hartop.

"G.o.d bless us all, what is this?" the mariner cried, running his hand over Gilbert's right arm. "There be surely more wet here than hath come from a few flakes of snow. Why, 'tis blood, my master, 'tis blood! Thou art wounded!"

"Wounded?" echoed Timothy rising excitedly to his feet. "Oh, my master!

Wherefore didst thou not tell us of this before? Where is the wound?"

"The fellow's rapier pierced me in the arm," explained Gilbert in a faint voice, as he leaned yet more helplessly on Hartop's shoulder. "But 'tis not much, I do a.s.sure you."

Timothy Trollops pressed his open palm upon the lad's sleeve, and, finding it wet from shoulder to wrist, "Not much?" he cried. "Why, thou'rt scarce able to stand, so much blood hath streamed from thee!

Thou'rt well-nigh fainting! Had I but known of this at the time, I warrant me the scoundrel should not have escaped so easily. Wouldst know the man again, my master?"

"Not I," murmured Gilbert in a yet fainter voice. "I saw not his face."

"Nor I neither," added Jacob Hartop. "'Twas too dark to see aught but their shadowy forms, even if mine own face had not been half-smothered under my cloak. But they are clean gone now you'll be saying, and 'twill avail us little to go in search of them or to tarry here any longer while one of us is sore wounded." He put his arms about Gilbert and added: "Heave thyself on to my back, young friend, and I will carry thee. 'Tis but a small distance if I mind aright from here to Thomas Southam's mill, where peradventure we shall get help, and a horse to carry thee further."

Timothy gently pushed the old man aside.

"Thy memory is like to an old almanack, Master Hartop," he said, "and of as little value for present use. Southam's mill was burnt to the ground a good ten years ago, and hath never yet been rebuilt."

"What?" cried Hartop, and, as if the information concerning the mill had staggered him, he stepped backward, allowing Gilbert Oglander to slip from his grasp. "Burnt to the ground!" he repeated. "Then prithee, young sir, what hath become of the miller's fair young daughter Betty--Betty Southam that promised to wait for me when I sailed away to foreign lands, ay, and to marry me when I should come back with the fortune that I meant to gain for her? What hath become of her, I say?"

Timothy lifted Gilbert upon his knee and held him there while he answered:

"Betty Southam? Ah! I knew her when I was a little child. But I do protest she was then neither young nor fair. As to what hath become of her, 'tis soon told, Master Hartop. She was found lying dead one winter's morning in Beddington Woods."

"Alas!" cried Hartop. "Then was my song indeed prophetic, for all my travel hath in very truth been 'forlorn and waste'."