Читать книгу The Golden Galleon - Robert Leighton - Страница 10

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AT THE SIGN OF THE PESTLE AND MORTAR.

ON the afternoon upon which the good ship Pearl dropped anchor in Sutton Pool, Peter Trollope was less busy than it was his wont to be at that time of day. His one customer since noon had been a poor farrier's apprentice, who had come in to have an aching tooth pulled out—an operation which had occupied the barber-surgeon scarcely a minute, and earned for him the total sum of twopence. But he had seen the ship enter the harbour, and knew well that sooner or later some of her crew would pay him a visit. In the meantime he engaged himself with two large, wild-looking birds, which he kept imprisoned in a dark box on a shelf near the window. He had just been feeding them with raw meat and was closing the lid of the box, when the shop-door was flung open and his son Timothy strode within, making a great clatter with his sword as he dragged the weapon behind him along the stone floor.

Tim threw his cap upon the oak settle at the farther end of the room, seated himself in an easy chair before the fire, and stretched out his legs at full length in front of him with all the freedom of a full-grown man. The bull-dog, which had been asleep in one of the warm corners of the ingle, crept out yawning and wagging his stump of a tail by way of greeting.

"So thou hast at last thought fit to come in and see if we be all alive still?" said Peter in an agrieved tone, as he regarded his stalwart son. "Thou'rt a dutiful son to thy poor parents, in all conscience. 'Tis shameful of thee, thus to neglect us, Tim. Thou'rt so vastly taken up with all the great folks at Modbury—my lord this, and my lady that, and all the rest of them—that thou dost seem to forget thine own flesh and blood. 'Twas only yesterday, as I live, that I saw thee passing by my very door without so much as looking in to give me a good day! Zounds, boy, 'tis most unseemly!"

Timothy stroked the dog's ears without raising his eyes to his justly-offended father.

"I had been bidden to go quickly on my errand, father," he explained, "and I dared not tarry by the way. I might not even have come in at this present time to see thee, but that my master hath given me leave while he goes to the end of the town to take a message from my lord to Sir Francis Drake."

"Methinks Master Oglander might have saved himself a journey," remarked the barber; "for 'tis only a half-hour since that I saw Sir Francis passing the door here, on his way, as I do believe, to Modbury Manor; for he wore his new damson silk cape with the gold-lace trimmings, and you may be sure by that token that he was going to where there will be women's eyes to look upon him."

Peter had approached the fireplace, and now stood with his back to the crackling logs, facing his son.

"I am sorry," he continued in a more cheery tone, "that Master Gilbert did not chance to come in with thee, Tim. I have wished to see him these many days past on a matter of business. I have here a pair of fine young goshawks that he might be willing to buy from me."

"Show them to me," demanded Timothy, rising from his chair. "If they be goshawks indeed, and in goodly condition, I doubt not that he will gladly buy them. Let me see them. I shall soon know if they be of any use. But I will wager you ere I set eyes on them that they are no more fit to fly against a pheasant than a mere sparrow-hawk might be."

"Nay, I cannot myself swear to them," said the barber, crossing to the shelf near the window, and proceeding to open the box, "for I have not been brought up among gentlefolks as thou hast been, and have never in all my life been present at a hawking party. But the lad who left them in my keeping did positively declare them to be of the true goshawk breed, and he bade me sell them for him if perchance I might find a likely customer." He threw back the lid of the box. "Here they be," said he.

Timothy looked over his father's shoulder at the birds. Then he thrust his gloved hand deep into the box. There was a noisy flapping of wings and a harsh rasping screech. Tim brought forth his hand with one of the hawks perched upon it. He held it aloft, examining the bird with critical eye.

"He is somewhat short i' the neck and flabby of flesh," he remarked, with the air of one who was a judge of such points, "but the head is of good shape, and the eyes are clear. He is fierce enough too, o' my conscience. Here, put him back, lest he bite me! And now," he added, when the bird was restored to its prison, "what want you for the pair of them? No cozening, mind you. I will not have my master overcharged even by my own father."

The barber-surgeon named the sum at which he was willing to sell the birds, and Tim at once proceeded to beat down the price to half the amount. Neither noticed in the midst of their dispute that a customer had entered the shop.

"Hi there, master barber!" cried the new-comer. "Cease your wrangling, and come and cut me my hair! Dost think I am going to wait for you all night?"

"Presently, your worship—presently," answered Peter, snatching up his scissors and comb. Then, turning to his son, he added: "Thy mother is laid abed with her old illness, Tim; get thee upstairs to her for awhile."

Timothy obediently disappeared through the door at the back of the shop, stumbling up the stairs with noisy feet and equally noisy sword; while his father, snipping his scissors merrily in his right hand and thus making a show of being exceedingly busy, offered his customer a chair where the light from the window might fall upon him.

He was a stranger to Peter Trollope, and therefore, it must be assumed, a stranger to Plymouth also. His long, untidy hair and beard, his bronzed skin, and, indeed, his whole appearance, betokened that he had newly come off the sea. His doublet, which had once been velvet, was worn threadbare; the colour, whatever it may originally have been, had suffered by the salt water, and was now an indistinct gray, stained here and there with dark-brown patches, which Peter surmised to be the stains of hardened blood. It was plain to see that the man was in some sort a warrior as well as a traveller.

While the barber was spreading a white napkin about him to protect his clothing from the clippings of hair which must presently fall from the scissors, he looked into the stranger's face, and perceived that the right cheek was marred by an old wound—a long straight wound like the cut of a knife, beginning below the eye and ending somewhere in the midst of his thick black beard.

"Well?" quoth the stranger, seeing that the barber hesitated to make a start. "Cut me my hair, I say."

"I am ready to execute your worship's will," announced Peter with a low bow, as he snipped his scissors. "Prithee, sir, will you have your worship's hair cut after the Italian manner, short and round, and then flounced with the curling-irons, or like a Spaniard's, long at the ears and curled like to the two ends of a new moon; or will you be Frenchified with a love-lock down to your shoulder, whereon you may hang your lady's favour? The English cut is base in these days of fashion, and gentlemen scorn it. Speak the word, sir; and howsoever you would have it, it shall be done."

"Nay, a plague on your love-locks and curling-irons," the stranger cried impatiently. "Do it as you please, but howsoever you do it, do it quickly. I know naught of your strange fashions and monstrous manners of haircutting. I have been absent from England so many years, that now when I come back I am as one who hath risen from out his grave to find all things changed."

"In truth, sir," observed the barber, "your worship will indeed find many changes, alike in government and in manners, if so be your absence hath been so long as you do say. Her Majesty's ministers and counsellors, indeed, have changed as often as the seasons. But the Queen herself, God bless her, is yet with us; so England is merry England still, and long may it so remain!"

Peter was now busy at work shearing his customer's plenteous crop of tangled hair.

"And how many years in all did your worship say that you had been abroad?" he ventured presently to inquire.

"More years than I care to number," was the somewhat curt reply.

"Ah!" responded Peter. "Then, sir, you had no hand in the glorious defeat of the great Armada of Spain? Haply your worship was in some far-distant country at that great time?"

The stranger shifted his position in his chair. His fingers moved restlessly.

"Haply I was," he answered. "But had I chanced to be at the very extremities of the earth, methinks I should still have heard rumour of the matter; for wherever there be Spaniards and wherever there be Englishmen, they are alike disposed to boast of their own prowess on that occasion. And from neither the one nor the other is it possible to arrive at the simple truth."

"The simple truth is simply this, your honour," returned Peter Trollope, with a proud smile, "that the Spaniards, despite their greater ships and their greater army of soldiers, were utterly routed and defeated." And the gossiping barber proceeded to tell the whole story to his listening customer as he continued with his clipping.

At length, having fairly come to the beard, he broke off in his wordy narrative and requested to know if his worship would have his beard cut short and to a peak like Sir Francis Drake's, or broad and round like a spade. "Or shall I shave it off," said he, "and leave only your worship's moustachios?" But he had scarcely made the last suggestion when his eye was once more caught by the cut on the man's cheek. "I would advise that the beard be left as it is," he said, "for it doth help to hide the wound upon your face. Although, indeed, there be many men in Plymouth who would be mightily proud to display so honourable a scar, for I doubt not your worship came by it in some desperate battle against our enemies of Spain."

It was at this moment that Timothy returned into the shop. He overheard his father's remark, and noticed that for some reason the stranger winced, as though he were far from being proud of the old wound.

"I do perceive that 'tis the cut from a sword," added the barber-surgeon, looking at the scar more closely. "I trust, for the honour of England, that you slew the rascal who gave it you."

"'Tis no sword-cut, but a wound from an Indian's arrow, shot at me from ambush," declared the traveller; and there was a curious tone in his voice—a tone which seemed to indicate that he was in reality giving only a half explanation, or perhaps even a totally false one. In any case he hastened very plainly to change the subject.

"You named one Francis Drake just now," said he. "Peradventure you can inform me if he be still alive?"

"Alive? Ay, that he is! Alive and well, the Lord be praised! and in Plymouth town at this present time—ah! I beg your worship's pardon. Perhaps I caught your cheek with the point of my scissors?"

The stranger had given a slight nervous start, and a look of displeasure if not of actual annoyance had come into his dark eyes.

"In Plymouth at this present time?" he repeated. And then he muttered some words in a foreign tongue, which neither Timothy nor his father could comprehend.

"Had you chanced to come in but an hour earlier you might even have encountered him," remarked the barber, "for he passed by this very door, and returned my salutation most graciously, as, indeed, he doth always do, whenever I come nigh him; for he is by no means proud, I promise you, for all that he hath done more for England than any other living man. But I am talking thus while it may be that your worship doth know him far better than I—while it may even be that you are his personal friend."

The man with the scarred cheek made no response to this last remark, but only leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes and knitting his brows. He remained silent until Trollope had clipped his beard to a satisfactory shape and was giving it the final touches. Then the warrior looked up suddenly and said with curious earnestness, as though he were seeking an answer to a most important question:

"There dwelt in the neighbourhood of Plymouth a score of years ago or so, a certain nobleman by name Baron Champernoun. Canst tell me, master barber, if there be any of his lordship's family still dwelling in these parts?"

Peter Trollope glanced aside at his son and smiled. Timothy strolled slowly towards the window and seated himself near the two goshawks, whence he could watch the stranger's face.

"The name is passing well known to all men of Devon," answered Peter as he surveyed his workmanship with excusable pride. "And Lord Champernoun himself—the only Lord Champernoun that I have known—still dwelleth at his family estate nigh unto the village of Modbury. He is stricken in years and passing feeble; but clear in his mind withal, and as excellent and worthy a Christian gentleman as you will find in all the land. As to his lordship's family, sir, 'tis small in number. He had two sons, your worship, to wit, Edmund Oglander and Jasper; for Oglander is the family name, you must know, Champernoun being but the baron's title, bestowed upon the head of the family in Henry the Fifth's time, and—"

"Ay, I wot well that there were two sons," interrupted the stranger, brusquely, "Edmund and Jasper, you say. Ay, and what of them, I pray you?"

"They both are dead," returned Peter Trollope. "Both lost their lives in distant lands. The Honourable Edmund Oglander, my lord's eldest son, went over to the Netherlands some five years agone, and fell in the battle of Zutphen—the same engagement in which the virtuous and gallant Sir Philip Sidney received his death wound from a Spanish bullet. The younger son, Jasper, died of a fever or some such pestilent mischance out in the Western Indies, whither he had gone to seek adventure and fortune in one of John Hawkins' ships. His lordship grieved not overmuch for the loss of Jasper, 'tis said; nor do I marvel at it, for surely a greater scamp and reprobate than young Jasper Oglander hath never lived."

"And both are dead, eh?" mused the traveller in a strange calculating tone. "Ods life! and who would have thought it? Why, then," he presently added, "it must be that the old baron is now quite alone in the world, and hath none of his own kin to follow him in his title and estates? Sooth, I do pity him to be thus left desolate in his old age, with never a son or a son's son to carry on his honoured name!"

"'Tis doubtless a sore grief to his lordship that his son Edmund surviveth not to enjoy his great inheritance," remarked Peter Trollope, "albeit Master Edmund gave up his life in a good and noble cause, and therein Lord Champernoun hath assuredly a sweet consolation. But if his lordship hath no longer a son, there is, after all, his grandson—a bright and gallant young gentleman, and a worthy heir to so vast an heritage."

The stranger raised his heavy eyebrows in quick surprise.

"So-ho?" quoth he; "a grandson, eh? Prithee, what might be the fortunate stripling's age?"

The barber turned to his son, who was at that moment looking out through the window at a strangely-dressed negro woman who was crossing the road in company with a seaman in the direction of the Three Flagons.

"Tim, what might be Master Gilbert's age?" he asked of the lad.

"Fourteen years, mayhap," answered Timothy. "And speaking of Master Gilbert, father, that remindeth me that I am to meet him at the market-cross at four by the clock; so I must tarry here no longer. I will let him know what you have said concerning the goshawks." And with that he took up his cap, wished his father a "God speed you!" and strolled out into the street.

As he approached the Three Flagons he was attracted by a little crowd of boys and girls who stood on the causeway staring at the black woman as she followed the seaman into the inn. At the same moment the youth whom Tim had seen coming ashore from the Pearl was making his way through the crowd. The lad glanced up at Tim in passing and seemed about to speak. Tim returned the glance and said:

"If 'tis the tall man with the scarred cheek that you are seeking, my master, you will find him at the sign of the Pestle and Mortar, some dozen yards along the Barbican on your left-hand side."

"'Tis not him that I am in want of at this moment," responded the lad, "I am seeking for the old rascal who came from off the ship with us an hour ago. Canst tell me which way he went?"

Timothy shook his head, disliking the haughty way in which the information was demanded.

"No," he answered. "'Twas no business of mine to spy upon him."

"I will reward you well if you can find him for me," pursued the other with unmistakable eagerness. And he thrust his fingers into his pouch and drew forth a small silver coin.

Timothy Trollope smiled and bade him keep his money. "As for my turning constable," he added, "I thank your honour, but I have other matters to occupy me." And so saying he went on his way towards the market-place.

As he walked along the harbour front his thoughts wandered back to the old storm-beaten mariner who had named himself Jacob Hartop. He remembered how Hartop, on stepping ashore, had gone down on his knees and fervently thanked his God for having brought him safely back to his native land, and how the tears had come into his dim eyes when Gilbert Oglander had done him the slight kindness of giving him a garment to cover his ill-clad body. Such a devout and grateful old man, thought Tim, could scarcely truly deserve the title of rascal which had just been applied to him. Why was this foreign-looking youth so very anxious that the old mariner should not escape him? Was it that he might do him some good service or pay him some debt of gratitude? Or was it not rather that he sought to do him some personal injury?