The Golden Galleon. Robert Leighton

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СКАЧАТЬ 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?

CHAPTER V.

       Table of Contents

      RAPIERS TO THE RESCUE.

      IT was already dark as night when Gilbert Oglander and Timothy Trollope, having kept their tryst in the old market-place, made their way together out of the dimly-lighted town. The wind had changed to the north-east, and snow had come with it. The white flakes swept along with a mad horizontal rush, alighting only, as by accident, when some tree or cottage or human figure barred their onward career. The two lads pulled down their caps about their tingling ears, bent their whitened bodies forward against the blast, and strode along regardless of the slush and mud upon the road.

      Neither spoke much until they had walked almost a mile's distance away from the town and were out in the open country. Here the snow seemed to be falling thicker and the wind to be blowing almost a gale.

      "Methinks thou hadst best have kept thy cloak to thyself, Master Gilbert," remarked Timothy at length, as he passed under the friendly shelter of a thick hedge, "for it had been of far greater use to thee than to the old man you so generously gave it to. Here are we exposed to the bitterness of this storm, while he, I will warrant me, is already at home before a goodly fire, or else carousing with his boon companions in some comfortable tavern parlour."

      Gilbert walked on a few paces in silence.

      "It matters little to me whether the cloak hath been of use to the poor fellow or not," he presently said. "I saw him tremble with the cold, and could not think of him going half-clothed while I had a garment to spare. And when one thinks on't, Tim, 'tis surely a hard matter for a seaman who hath spent half a lifetime in tropic countries to come home here to England in the very depth of winter."

      "Pooh!" objected Timothy. "But 'tis said that an Englishman can endure any climate in the world and suffer no ill from it. What of Sir Martin Frobisher and his crews, who voyaged far up into the frozen regions of the Arctic, where, 'tis said, there be whole mountains of ice, and where even the salt seas be frozen over for a full half of the year? I will engage that Sir Martin and his men met not such kindly gentlemen up in those parts to give them warm cloaks withal. And as for this old man Hartop, I'd be in nowise astonished to-morrow if I heard that he had sold your cloak to a pawnbroker and spent the money in strong liquors, or else thrown it away in the dice-box. You cannot persuade me, Master Gilbert, that a man who hath been for a score of years in foreign lands could come home so poor as this man, if he had not squandered all his gains in wanton idleness."

      "Misfortune doth ofttimes come even to those who are righteous," remarked Gilbert Oglander in a sober voice as he shook the wet snow from the front of his doublet and hitched his sword anew under his arm, "and I will not believe that the man who СКАЧАТЬ