The Golden Galleon Part 5

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 pa.s.sing well known to all men of Devon," answered Peter as he surveyed his workmans.h.i.+p 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 pa.s.sing 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 lords.h.i.+p's family, sir, 'tis small in number. He had two sons, your wors.h.i.+p, to wit, Edmund Oglander and Jasper; for Oglander is the family name, you must know, Champernoun being but the baron's t.i.tle, 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' s.h.i.+ps. His lords.h.i.+p 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 t.i.tle 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 lords.h.i.+p 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 n.o.ble cause, and therein Lord Champernoun hath a.s.suredly a sweet consolation. But if his lords.h.i.+p 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 "G.o.d 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 ash.o.r.e from the _Pearl_ was making his way through the crowd. The lad glanced up at Tim in pa.s.sing 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 s.h.i.+p 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 ash.o.r.e, had gone down on his knees and fervently thanked his G.o.d 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 t.i.tle 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 grat.i.tude? Or was it not rather that he sought to do him some personal injury?

CHAPTER V.

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 pa.s.sed 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 p.a.w.nbroker 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 could devoutly thank G.o.d, as Hartop did, for having brought him safely home, could be aught but an honest man at heart."

"Nevertheless," pursued Timothy, "I do greatly fear that your charity in this present case was misplaced; for as I was pa.s.sing nigh to the sign of the Three Flagons on my way to the market-place just now, I encountered once again the dark-eyed youth whom we saw coming from off the s.h.i.+p. He besought me to tell him, if I could, whither the old man Hartop had gone, and did even offer to reward me if I could aid him in arresting the old rascal, as he called him. He spoke in such wise that I could only believe that the old mariner had committed some cruel offence against him. And, indeed, Master Gilbert, if you remember, this Hartop was truly in a mighty desperate hurry to separate himself from his s.h.i.+pmates."

"Well, well, 'tis no affair of ours, Tim, howsoever it be," returned Gilbert. And he bent down his head and marched on in silence.

Tim Trollope walked in advance of his young master to s.h.i.+eld him from the snow; and thus they plodded on their way, until they came to a narrow lane bordered by high overhanging trees that increased the darkness, and amid whose leafless, dripping branches the wind whistled and moaned. As the two turned into the lane Timothy dropped back to his companion's side.

"There is a matter upon which I listed to speak with you," he abruptly said, and then was silent for a dozen strides. "'Tis about the man we saw to-day--" he added, "the man with the scarred cheek."

"And what of him?" questioned Gilbert. "Hast learned peradventure that he hath discovered a new Eldorado? or that his s.h.i.+p is laden with a cargo of talking poll-parrots and gambolling monkeys? What of him, quotha?"

"Nay, I have learned but little concerning either him or his s.h.i.+p,"

answered Timothy. "But when I was in at the Pestle and Mortar this afternoon, he also was there, getting his hair and beard trimmed, and it chanced that he did question my father most curiously touching my lord your grandfather and your late uncle Jasper. It seemeth that he knew both your father and your uncle. And more especially was he interested as to yourself, Master Gilbert."

"How so?" exclaimed Gilbert, growing attentive now. "But if I heard him aright as he spoke to the woman who was with him, 'twas surely in the Portuguese that he spoke, and I marvel how any Portugal man could have known my father."

"'Tis true that he did speak in a foreign tongue," responded Timothy, "but, for all that, I take him to be an Englishman born, if indeed he be not even a man of Devon. My reason for speaking of him, however, is that he showed a very strange and surprising concern in the matter of my Lord Champernoun's t.i.tle and estates. When he was told that your uncle Jasper had died of a malaria out on the Spanish Main, a smile came upon his face. It was as if he knew a vast deal more about Jasper Oglander than we could tell him. 'Twas not my business to question one of my father's customers; but had I been bold enough I should certainly have asked him if 'twas not true, as I do suspect, that he had some part in the death of your uncle; for you must not forget, Master Gilbert, that the matter was never very clearly explained to us. Even Sir Richard Grenville threw some doubt upon the report that he died of a fever, and suggested that 'twas by the hand of man that he was taken off. And, indeed, if all we have heard of Jasper Oglander be true, he was a man (saving your presence) of such evil ways, that 'twould be no great wonder to me if he had been murdered by some one whom he had injured out there in wild Virginia."

"Thou'rt too p.r.o.ne to listen to idle gossip, Tim," rejoined Gilbert in a tone of reproof; "ay, and too ready to draw your own conclusions. For my own part I am willing to believe that Uncle Jasper was a far better man than report hath made him out to be. 'Tis true that I never knew him, and that I never even set eyes upon him save when I was a little child, and too young to judge of his character. But my grandfather hath never spoken an ill word of him in my hearing, and, prithee, what should that bode but that Jasper was a very worthy and proper gentleman?"

"Not in your hearing, it may well be," interposed Timothy, "but I do a.s.sure you that my lord hath no great cause to love his younger son's memory. As for your father (G.o.d rest him!), he and his brother Jasper were ever at enmity."

Gilbert walked on for many moments without speaking, but at last he said:

"I have heard more than once of that enmity, Tim, but never yet have I discovered its cause. Canst tell me why it was that they quarrelled, lad?"

"There were divers causes, Master Gilbert," returned Tim. "But for the most part the enmity arose (or so at least I have been told) out of Jasper Oglander's envy and jealousy. He was jealous of your father's greater wit and learning; of his greater skill in all games and manly sports; jealous in that his brother Edmund was chosen by the Queen to be one of Her Majesty's pages at the court and afterwards one of her favoured courtiers. But more than all else, 'tis said that he was jealous in that your father was the elder son, and by consequence the heir to the Champernoun t.i.tle and lands. Also, you must understand--"

Gilbert suddenly gripped his companion's arm.

"Hark!" he cried. "Prithee, what is that strange wailing sound that I hear?"

Timothy came to a stand-still and held his breath, listening for a few moments.

"I hear naught whatsoever," said he, "naught but the wailing of the wind among the trees. Yet wait! there was in truth another sound. Was't not the screech of some wild bird of the night? No; 'tis there again. 'Tis someone singing--some wayfarer chanting a ditty to scare away the ghosts."

"Even so it is," agreed Gilbert. "Ay, and a likely place for a ghost too, down yonder in Beddington Dingle. I had rather travel a good five miles round than pa.s.s through that dark and desolate wood after midnight."