Chapter II: Part 2

"Thank you, I can rise," said Sir Mark, reddening, as he made an effort and rose without assistance; but the room seemed to swim round, and he staggered and would have fallen, had not his surgeon caught him by the uninjured arm, and helped him to a seat, letting him gently down into a half-reclining position.

As he did so the eyes of the two young men met, and Gilbert Carr, as he gazed into those of his patient, felt a strange sense of mistrust pass over him like a foreboding of coming trouble; while on the other side, as the smooth young courtier looked into the bright, clear grey eyes, and scanned the dark, bronzed visage bending over him, he felt that they two would be enemies for a woman's sake.

"That's it--that's better," said Gilbert Carr, quietly. "You need have no fear for the consequences, sir. It is a clean cut, and will soon heal in our pure, fresh air."

"I thank you," said Sir Mark, rather stiffly; "I do not fear. Madam, I grieve to have caused you this trouble," he continued, addressing Mace, who stood close by.

"Nay, sir; pray do not say that. It is we who are grieved--my father."

"Ay, she's right," said Cobbe, advancing. "My brave lad, I feel ashamed to face you after such a stroke."

"Ashamed!" said Sir Mark, with a quiet glance at Mace; and then, seeing his advantage, he said, smiling as he held out his uninjured hand, "Never be ashamed, sir, of so gallant a handling of your sword. They tell me in London I can fence, and that enemies who have fought make the best of friends."

"You are a brave true gentleman, sir," cried the founder, wringing the outstretched hand; "and I humbly ask your forgiveness for my choler. I was hot and angry. There, God bless the King; and I beg his Majesty's pardon for what I said."

"It is granted," said Sir Mark, smiling faintly, "for he will never know."

"Now let me say a word," said Gil, who had been uneasily looking on. "Fever may come on if he is excited. Take my advice, sir, lie back and go to sleep. Mace--no, here is Janet--fetch a pillow for this gentleman."

The girl ran out, and returned bearing one of snowy hue, which Gil adjusted beneath the wounded man's head.

"Now, sir, sleep for awhile, and you will be refreshed. Your arm is all right. I have dressed many a sword-cut in my time."

"Thanks," said Sir Mark, faintly; "but some one will stay with me in the room?"

He glanced at Mace.

"Of course," said the founder. "Mace, my child."

"Yes," said Gil, quietly, "go away, Mace; Janet will stay and watch by this gentleman's side."

Mace glanced at him wonderingly, and Janet coloured with pleasure as, frowning slightly, Sir Mark closed his eyes, and the girl half drew the blind, while, headed by the founder, after removing all traces of the conflict, Gilbert Carr and Mace went softly out, and closed the door.

"Why do you look at me like that?" said Mace, as they stood alone. "Gil, do you doubt me?"

"Doubt you?" he said softly as he bent down and kissed her white forehead. "No, I could not, for you are not as other women are. I did not wish you, though, to be 'tendant to this spark from the Court, for such he seems to be. Nay, Mace, I've no jealousy in me. But there is your pike," he added, pointing to the fish, a great fellow four feet long, which lay on the red bricks at their feet. "Here is your father, and he'll tell us how the quarrel rose."

"Quarrel! it was not worth calling a quarrel," cried the founder, shortly. "It seems that some meddlesome fool has been telling them in London of my works, and this gentleman has been sent down to inspect the place. He vexed me, and said something about the King, which made me rap out an oath. He drew: I drew."

"And our visitor went down," said Gil Carr, smiling. "Well, Master Cobbe, there's not much harm done."

"But I shall have to send over to the Moat, Gil, and tell Sir Thomas; he was here a piece back."

"Nay," said Gil, "ill news flies apace, there is no need to hasten it. Leave it to the gentleman himself."

"Perhaps you are right," returned the founder. "Of course he will not be fit to leave for a day or two. Mace, child, get the south chamber ready for our guest: let's try and make up for the ill that we have done."

Gilbert Carr half-closed his eyes and stood silent till Mace left the open hall, where they were standing, to prepare the chamber for the wounded man, when he replied to the founder's remark:--

"It depends so upon the man."

"Eh? How?"

"Well, if you had a scratch or pin-thrust like that you would go and see to the grinding of your last batch of powder. If I had it, I should."

"Well?" said the founder.

"I should tie it up--tightly," replied Gil, drily. "Your guest there will make a month's illness of it for the sake of being petted by the women and nursed."

"That's a pretty jealous kind of remark, Captain Gil," said the founder sharply. "I noticed how you took me up short when I bade Mace stop in the room with the poor young man. Come down here, I want to talk to you. We may as well say it now as at any other time. Let's walk down to the empty furnace. No one will heed us there."

"With all my heart," said Gil, and, with a cloud gathering on his brow, he walked after the founder, along by the side of the rushing water, past the mill-wheel, and down to a good-sized stone building, beside which was a great pile of charcoal.

"Now, Gil Carr," said the founder, seating himself on the ledge of an open window, "I'm not going to quarrel."

"That you are not," said the other, smiling frankly; "and if you did you are not going to fight, for I won't draw. One wounded man is enough for one day."

"Tut--tut--yes," cried the founder. "But now look here, Captain Gil--"

"Suppose we drop the captain, and let it be plain Gil again, as it has been these many years. Master Cobbe, we are very old friends."

"Yes, yes, of course, Gil, so we are," said the founder, looking annoyed and puzzled. "But now, look here, tell me why did you interfere when I was going to tell my child to sit in the room with that injured gentleman. Come now, be frank."

"I will," said Gil, quietly. "It was because I did not think it seemly for her to stay and tend a man whose eyes had just openly bespoken admiration, and I thought that Janet would do as well."

"Like your insolence," cried the choleric old man.

"Gently, Master Cobbe," said the other smiling; "too much powder again."

"Confound it, yes," he cried, calming down, but only to grow wroth the next moment, as he saw the smile upon his companion's face. "You are laughing at me, Gil; and now, hark ye here, I think it is quite time we came to a proper understanding."

"About Mace?" said Gil, quietly.

"Yes, about my child," said the founder.

"I think so, too," said Gil, calmly, but with the bronze hue of his cheek becoming a little more deeply tinted.

"Oh! you do," said the founder, with a peculiar hesitancy, now it had come to the point, and an aspect of being slightly in awe of the other and his calm, firm way--the peculiar quiet assertion of one born to and accustomed to command.

"I do," said Gil, gazing him full in the eyes; "and I am glad that you have opened a subject I wanted to discuss."

"Then it is soon done," said the founder; "and look here, Gil, my dear lad, after the talk is over, we go back to our old positions as good friends, and it is to be as if we had never spoken."

"Have no fear," said Gil, smiling; "as I told you, we shall not quarrel."

"Well, then, look here," said the founder, making a plunge at once into the subject. "Gil Carr, you are growing too intimate with my child."

"Indeed!" said Gil, raising his eyebrows. "Let me see, Master Cobbe: it is sixteen years since Wat Kilby brought me, a delicate boy of twelve, low from an attack of a fever caught in the Western Isles, and you and your good wife nursed me into strength."

"Yes, yes, quite true," said the founder, hastily. "Poor Rachel! poor Rachel!" he muttered, and his face clouded.

"If ever woman was meet for the kingdom of heaven when she died it was Mace's mother--my second mother!" said Gil, gravely.

"Amen to that!" said the founder. "Thank you, Gil--thank you--God bless you for those words," he continued, with his voice trembling; and he seized and wrung the young man's hand, which warmly pressed his in return.

"Mace was a child of four then, Master Cobbe," said Gil, "and we have been like brother and sister ever since."

"Yes, yes, quite true," said the founder.

"Then why do you say that I am growing too intimate with your child?"

"Because," said the founder, laying his hand upon the young man's arm, "you are growing now less like brother and sister, and it is time it was stopped."

"Why?" said Gil, gravely.

"Because, Gil Carr, the intimacy of two people like you might lead to feelings that end in marriage, and that could never be."

"I do not see why not," said Gil, quietly.

"No," said the founder, "but I do! And now listen. I like you, Gil, and I'm going to give you a bit of advice, both about this matter and your ship, for we are old friends, and I should not like you and yours to come to harm."

"Friends in home matters, but in business you always drove the hardest bargains with me that you could; and now you talk of locking Mace away."

"Friends enough, all the same, my lad; and as to locking up my daughter from you, as you term it, if I in the future bid her always keep her room when you are home from sea and come up here, shall I not do right? Would you have me bring her out to listen to the gallant words of every buccaneering captain who comes to my place, swaggering and swearing and drinking, till he wants a man on each side to see him safe away, lest he get into the mill-race or the dam. Nay, Captain Gil Carr--Culverin Carr, if you like!--times are altered now, for Mace is a woman grown, and a girl no longer. So in the future I'll trade with you and be the best of friends, but there we'll stop."

"Now, Master Cobbe," said Gil, with a quiet, grave smile, "when did you see me overcome by strong waters, or swaggering, or using oaths? Fie! you make me worse than I am."

Jeremiah Cobbe chuckled, and laid his finger good-humouredly upon the young man's breast.

"It will not do, Gil lad, so we need not argue. You are as good as most men; but see here, I have Mace's future welfare to provide for, and, above all, her happiness. I've been weak and neglectful, perhaps, so far, but now I'm going to be hard as the iron in those guns. There's no harm done as yet, so let us stop in time, for we both wish the poor girl to be happy."

"No harm?" said Gil.

"No: so we'll stop at once. Think you I'm going to let a man like you fool the girl with fine words? You journey here, and you journey there, and you see saucy Frenchwomen, bright-eyed Spaniards, and dark-haired Portingallo dames, and those of Italy, and no one knows where beside. Court them, my lad, and marry as many of them as you like. May be you have now a wife in every port, but you must e'en leave my little white moth alone. Let her flitter and flutter about and be satisfied with the soft light of the moon and stars; I don't want her pretty wings singed in the fierce light of a thoughtless man's love."

"Amen!" said Gil, softly.

"Amen, eh? Why, Gil, you are a fine fellow to give forth such a churchman's word as that so glibly and so pat. Master Peasegood would look fierce enough if he heard such an ungodly follower of Belial as you beginning to preach."

"In the name of all that's strange, Master Cobbe, what does this mean?" exclaimed Gil. "I have been free of your house all these years, and now this sudden change has come over you, and you treat me thus scurvily. In the name of all the saints, speak out. What have I done?"

"Been hooked by Father Bonchurch, seemingly, and gone over to see the Scarlet Lady on the Seven Hills, to hear you swearing by the saints."

"It is enough to make a man swear by anything, Master Cobbe, to meet with such treatment. Come, speak out; how have I affronted you?"

"Well, if you will know, Master Gil, I looked out across the Pool some little time back, and I saw a certain young man out there in my boat fishing. All at once he thrust his hand into a bucket of water, and seized a feckless gudgeon, which he deftly hooked, and then threw overboard for the pike to seize. And, as I looked, I saw a little hand taken and kissed, and I knew then that one Captain Culverin had hooked a second gudgeon as well, and that he might play with her for a time, as he watched her helpless struggles in his hot hands, and then he might throw her overboard too. Then the scales fell from my eyes, and I saw that I had been a fool--one who had been so wrapped-up in his cannon-making that he had forgotten to watch what went on in his own house. Gilbert Carr, you have ceased to be a brother to my child, and have made hot love to her. Come, confess."

"Confess!" cried Gil, with his face lighting up; "I have nothing, sir, to confess. If you wish me to avow that I dearly love our little Mace, I do with all my soul; and, God giving me strength, I will never do aught that shall make her shame that I love her. Yes, Master Cobbe, love has grown stronger year by year; man's love--hot love if you will, and she has been to me my one hope--the hope that has kept me a better man than I should have been. Come, be not hard upon me, Master Cobbe. You cannot mean that you disapprove of our love?"

"I do disapprove of your love!" cried the founder angrily; "and I'll have no more of such childish babble."

"But Master Cobbe--"

"I'll hear no more, I say."

"Nay, Master Cobbe, this is unreasonable."

"Call it what you will; I say I'll have no more of it. You are not the man to make my child happy, and now we understand one another. Mind, I forbid it."

"You may forbid it, Master Cobbe," said Gil quietly; "but I tell you frankly I cannot listen to your commands. Matters have gone too far."

"But they shall not have gone too far," cried the founder, flushing up, and stamping his foot with rage, "I'll hear no more. Look ye here, Captain Gil, you're in a passion now, so let me see no more of you for seven days. Then, perhaps, we can meet and talk calmly. Meantime, go and think."

As he said these words Jeremiah Cobbe, the founder of Roehurst, went into his empty furnace-house, and Gil Carr walked slowly away to think of his dismissal--now, when a man whom he already looked upon as an enemy was in the place; and the young man's face darkened as imagination began to be busy, filling his mind full of strange fancies, strongly opposed to the words he had spoken but a short time since to Mace as they parted at the house.

Volume 1, Chapter V.

HOW THE FOUNDER SET A TRAP TO CATCH A LOVER.

Nature seems to have ordained that the stricken ones should seek solitude to find solace for their wounds. The deer injured by the shot of the hunter plunges into the depths of the forest, and the human being cut to the heart hides away from his kind to brood and think and wait until time shall soften the pain.

So it was now with Gil Carr, for his steps led him slowly into the forest depths of the old weald, where, coming at length, by means of a cart-track, to an opening where the woodman's axe had been at work and a hollow blackened with dust and dotted with curious little fungi, showed where the charcoal burners had been busy, he seated himself upon a stump, and began to think over the past--of the days when a boy he had been his father's companion on shipboard, when he used to be shut down in the cabin below water-line when some attack was to be made upon a Spanish ship or fort in the Carib sea; of the love the stern, sun-browned, grizzled man bore him, and how he had been the rough sailors' plaything. Then of that dreadful day when lying below half wandering with fever, when the air that came through the little cabin window seemed burning hot, he had felt his head throb, and listened to the noise of cannons, wondering whether they were real or only the fancies of his aching brain. Of how he had at last with swimming head crawled from his berth and painfully climbed on deck, where his feet slid from under him, and he fell in a pool of blood, after which he crawled to pass, one after the other, half a score of dead and wounded men, to where a group was standing round one who lay upon the deck, dark with the shades of approaching death, and with his head supported by Wat Kilby, who was crying like a child.

How plainly it all came back as he sat there in the forest shades, with the glowing sunbeams that flashed through the leaves and burnished the silvery-green of the great bracken fronds, seeming like the swords that glittered under the tropic sky, and the gleaming armour that the stout adventurers wore when they made way for him to crawl to his father's side.

That pale, stern face lit up--how well he remembered it!--and one feeble hand was raised to be laid upon his head, as with his dying breath the smitten captain, one of Elizabeth's adventurous spirits, who fought the Spaniards under the English flag, half raised himself and cried--

"Brave lads--God's will--this is your captain now!"

And then, as he flung himself wildly upon his father's breast, there was a loud hurrah, for the fighting-men and crew flashed their swords over his head, and swore they would follow him to the death. Over _his_ head, for he was alone upon the deck with the dead.

How it all came back--his long illness--Wat Kilby's constant care--how he was brought home, and their ship ascended the little river--how he was taken to Roehurst, to gradually win his way back to health and strength; and then there were the happy days he had spent with little Mace as his playfellow till he rejoined the ship, and was hailed by those on board as their very captain, under whom nominally, but with Wat Kilby as their head, they had sailed to east and west, trading, fighting when Spaniards were in the way, till he had really taken the helm, and led the unquiet spirits who had always chafed at the rule of James, their dislike culminating in hatred after they had joined in Raleigh's luckless venture and returned. Then had come a long time of quiet trading--the ship they sailed bearing to other shores year after year the produce of the Roehurst forges, and bringing back the old founder's needs; sulphur from Sicily or Iceland; Chinese salt, as they called it-- saltpetre--from the east.

And now after all these years, when the captain's love for his little playmate had grown into the strong, absorbing passion of a man for the woman of his heart, he was suddenly called upon to give her up.

The day wore on as Gil sat there thinking! the wood-pigeons set up their mournful coo-coo, coo-coo, heedless of his presence; the blackbirds that swarmed in the low coppices, where the trees had been cut down, uttered their alarm-notes, and then came and hunted out the wild cherries close at hand; and at last, as here and there the bright lamps of the glow-worms were lit, the rabbits came out to frisk and feed, so still and thoughtful was the occupant of the glade.

"No," he said at last, "I will not. My life has been, rough, but I cannot blame myself for that; and I will not. I cannot give her up. Mace, my darling, if I knew that by never seeing you again I should add to your happiness, I would bear the suffering like a man. As it is, Master Cobbe, I must go against your will."

He strode hastily away, with the wild creatures of the woods scattering right and left at his heavy tread, and, making straight for the gabled house, he began for the first time now to think upon its occupant.

Once or twice a pang shot through his breast as he thought of the gaily-dressed young officer made a welcome guest at the house whose door he was forbidden to enter; and he stopped short, with his teeth gritting together, and his brow knit, his mind agitated by the thoughts of what might be.

It was very still, and the soft balmy summer night-air bore the sounds from far away, as with a faint, piercing, shrill cry the bats wheeled around the tree beneath whose dark shadow he stood; the night-hawk chased the moths in busy circle, and a great white-breasted owl floated softly by, turned and flew beneath the tree, but on seeing Gil uttered a wild and thrilling shriek as it fled away, a sound in keeping with the words of Gil Carr, as he walked hastily on once more, exclaiming--

"I should slay him if he did."

The object of his thoughts was Sir Mark Leslie, then lying on a couch by the open window of his room, with the sweet scents of the garden floating in, and the soft, moist, warm night-air playing pleasantly upon his forehead.

He, too, had his thoughts fixed upon Mace, and, perhaps by a subtle influence, they were drawn, too, towards him whom he had seen as her companion in the boat, the man who had played surgeon, and in whose eyes he had seemed to read no friendly feeling towards himself.

It must have been ten o'clock when Gil came in sight of the gables standing up against the soft, clear summer sky. The occupants of the neighbouring cottages were asleep, and with the exception of the beetle's drone, and the baying of some bugle-mouthed beagle, all was so silent that the ripple and rush of the water in the stone channel seemed to rise and fall with almost painful force.

There was a broad sloping bank some thirty or forty yards from the front of the house, and, taking off his hat, Gil softly walked along by it for a little distance, stooping here and there to thrust his hand in among the long dew-wet grass, and place something in his hat.

So occupied was he with his proceedings that he did not notice a figure seated beneath a tree nor heed the faint odour of tobacco which was nearly overpowered in the soft, sweet woodland scents that floated by. Neither did he notice that a window was open in one of the gables, and that the founder was seated there, gazing out upon the summer sky.

For, lover-like, Gil Carr was just then very blind, perhaps because the thoughts of Mace Cobbe filled his breast to the exclusion of everything else. Turning then to his task, he walked back to the sloping bank, and softly placed the four glow-worms he had brought diamond-wise upon the grass, where the little creatures glimmered in the darkness like the signal-lights of a ship at sea.

So thought Gil Carr, as he turned to look at them from a little distance, and then, softly walking to the little swing-bridge, he crossed it lightly in the darkness, and, leaping the fence, stood amongst the clustering roses waiting for the opening of a window ten feet above his head.

He had not long to wait, for the signal had been seen, and before many moments had elapsed there was a slight grating noise and then a soft voice that made the young man's heart throb uttered the one word--"Gil."

"Yes, dear, I am here," he replied, eagerly.

"How foolish!" came next from overhead. "Why, Gil, you were with me this afternoon, and yet you play the love-sick swain beneath my window now."

"I am sick with love, sweet; even unto death."

"Are you turning poet, Gil?"

"Yes, for I seem to live in a sphere of poesy when I think of thee."

"You foolish boy."

"I am," he said. "Would I could see thine eyes."

"And that they were glow-worms," she said laughingly. "There, good-night, dear Gil. It is late, and I must to bed. If you are my true love, come boldly to the house by day; such meetings as this become neither thee nor me."

"Stay awhile, sweet," he said. "What of your guest?"

"Poor fellow! I have not seen him since."

Gil sighed content.

"There, I must fain go now, dear Gil. Good-night."

"Nay, nay! a moment longer," he cried.

"Why, Gil," she cried, laughing musically, "one would think you were a lover forsaken and forlorn, condemned to stay away--forbidden the house."

"I am."

"What?"

"I am, sweet; and condemned to stolen meetings."

"Why, Gil?" she exclaimed; and in a low voice he told her all.

Meanwhile as Gil's dark figure was seen approaching the house, the watcher at the open window drew back to ensure being unseen, and then proceeded to follow the young man's movements, ending by going to the far end of the room, taking down a curious old Spanish matchlock from a couple of slings, and then opening an oaken cabinet, from which he took powder in a carved horn flask, and a small pouch of bullets, with which the piece was carefully charged. Then the match was cautiously lit, and, approaching the window, the barrel was laid upon the sill, as he who carried it went down on one knee, and took a careful aim at the young man where he stood.

"I could bring him down easily," muttered the watcher. "He shall not play with me and break her heart."

"Nay," he growled, the next minute, "it would be cowardly, and he is a brave strong lad. But he shall not trifle with either of us, and I will not have him here.

"Shall I fire?" he said, holding the heavy piece hesitatingly; and the long barrel shook in his hand.

The hesitation was not for long. With a sigh of annoyance he placed the matchlock in the corner, and, going downstairs, he went out softly by the back, and came right round by the front of the house, as if meaning to interrupt the meeting now in progress, but instead of so doing he went down to the great mill-wheel, and crossed the water by means of its spokes and paddles. Then stealing softly along by the far edge of the deep stream, he crossed it by the bridge, and by putting a long lever in motion swung the bridge right round, leaving the way perfectly open, so that any one coming from the house would, in place of going across the bridge, walk in the darkness right into the deep water, and, however strong a swimmer he might be, he would be carried down by the force of the stream right amidst the woodwork of the wheel, perhaps past it, and down into the lower fall amongst the rocks beneath.

"He won't drown," muttered the founder; "and it will be a lesson to him--teach him that I don't mean play."

Walking softly back to the mill-wheel he crossed again, made his way into the house, and then to the window, where he once more took up his position, and began to watch the dimly-seen crossing, waiting to see the disturber, as he termed him, of his daughter's peace, fall headlong into the channel.

Hardly had he settled himself, though, to watch, when a change came over him.

"No, hang it," he muttered, "it is a dirty, mean trick; and Gil Carr is too good a man to treat in such a way. I've been hard enough upon him, and there is no need for this. I'll go and put it back."

The founder went down stairs once more, and out into the darkness with the full intent of replacing the bridge; but he was too late. Before he could reach the rough framework by which he had crossed, there was a step away to the right, a cry, a tremendous splash, and, as for a few moments he stood paralysed by the rushing stream, he caught a glimpse of a white face amidst the black water, and then it disappeared.

The founder's repentance seemed to have come too late, and his trap had apparently acted but too well. For the first time, perhaps, he realised that a man's chance of life in those rushing waters was very small. He had once helped to draw out the body of one who had been drowned in the great pool, and who had gradually been drawn down to get entangled in the mill-wheel, but he had never seen any one fall directly into the race, and he was startled at the velocity with which the figure passed.

"My poor lad!" he groaned. "What have I done? Of all the passionate fools!--"

Here he was interrupted by a couple of figures approaching out of the darkness, one on either side of the stream, and a voice that made him start exclaimed, "Has he passed you?"

Setting a trap is one thing, catching the right bird you set it for quite another affair.

In this case Jeremiah Cobbe had calculated pretty well, but he had not foreseen all the possibilities, and the consequence was that the man for whose benefit the bridge had been drawn aside had not fallen into the stream.

For no sooner had the founder entered the house and closed the door than a tall, gaunt figure rose up from behind the thick hedge which sheltered the garden, and uttered a low peculiar signal, somewhat like the cry of a sea-bird. This he repeated twice without effect, and he was about to risk being heard in replacing the swing-bridge when a sound from another direction made him shrink back to his hiding-place, after giving another signal exactly like the seamew's cry.

The sound he heard was a footstep, and the watcher knew in an instant that it was not Gil's, both by its peculiarity and by its coming in a fresh direction from that in which he had heard the answer to his last signal.

"It's Cobbe come back to slew round the bridge," he muttered to himself, as he crouched down; and hardly had he uttered the remark than there was a slip, a loud ejaculation, and then a sharp cry and a splash.

"Then it wasn't Cobbe," exclaimed the watcher, as he sprang up, and, repeating his signal, he soon heard his leader's footsteps hastily approaching. "Don't try to cross," he said; "the bridge has gone and some one has fallen in. Run to the wheel, or whoever it is will be there first, and take a dowser into the lower bole."

Gil ran along the side of the swift channel, and, directly after encountering the dimly-seen form of the founder, he exclaimed, "Has he passed you?"

"Yes; quick," cried the old man, as he tried hard to recover from the shock he had received; "we may stop him by the wheel here. Who was it?"

"Heaven knows," cried Gil; "don't stop to talk."

As he spoke he was already down on his knees beside the wheel, and made a snatch at something which was hitched on to one of the broad slimy paddles; but even as he stretched out his hand the shape glided away, and went over the fall with a shoot into the black water down below.

"For God's sake, be quick," cried the founder, "or he'll be drowned, whoever he is. Drop on to the stones below; the water is only a few inches deep at the side, and you may reach him as he comes up with the eddy."

Without a moment's hesitation Gil lowered himself over the wood-piles, and dropped with a splash on to the water-worn pebbles below, where there was a broad shelf before the water went sheer down ten or a dozen feet into a hole caused by the washing of the heavy stream that fell from above.

Overhung as it was by willows, and enclosed by slimy piles and masses of fern-hung rock, it was a gruesome place, at mid-day, with the sun shining. By night its very aspect would have been enough to deter most men from venturing to plunge in. It, however, had no deterrent effect upon Gil, who leaned forward, peering into the darkness, to see if he could reach the drowning man; but finding that he was swept away by the stream, and being drawn round by the eddy towards the falling torrent which came over in a sheet, he plunged boldly in, caught the first part of the drowning man's garments he could seize, and swam strongly towards the lower part of the waste water, where Wat Kilby was ready to give him a helping hand, half dragging him out, and at the same time whispering a few words in his ear.

Jeremiah Cobbe was beside them directly, eagerly asking who it was they had saved.

"It looks like your guest, Master Cobbe," said Gil sourly. "There, he is not drowned, but coming-to fast. I'll leave you to take him home; and, perhaps, you had better tell him to keep in the house at night, as you have taken to the bad habit of setting traps to catch your friends."

"Not for my friends, Gil Carr, but for those who act like rats or other vermin, and steal round my place at ungodly hours," cried the founder angrily.

"Call it what you will, Master Cobbe," said Gil, coldly, "I'll say good-night;" and without another word he walked away to change his wet garments, while the founder helped his half-drowned guest back to the house.

Volume 1, Chapter VI.

HOW WAT KILBY WENT WOOING.

Sir Mark's wound was of such a nature that, being a young and healthy man, it would soon have healed up; but his imprudence in leaving the house, and his immersion, gave matters so unfavourable a turn that next morning he was unable to leave his bed, and, on a messenger arriving from the Moat with Sir Thomas Beckley's inquiries how it was Sir Mark had not returned, he was sent back with the news of the young man's accident, nothing being mentioned about the sword-wound. The result was that Gil, in the course of the morning, when he happened to be strolling in that direction, met Sir Thomas and his daughter on their way to Roehurst, followed by a servant laden with a basket.

Mistress Anne's face turned white, then rosy red, as she saw Gil approach, and as her eyes met his they were full of reproach and angry resentment, which rapidly gave place to a girlish, half-playful manner as soon as Sir Thomas mentioned the cause of his visit.

"A perilous accident has befallen my guest, Captain Carr," said the baronet, pompously--"Sir Mark Leslie, a Scottish gentleman, a special messenger from his Majesty, who has come here on important business. He was nearly drowned last even, and is now ill abed. We have brought him some simples and medicaments of Dame Beckley's own preparation, and we hope soon to have him back."

"Oh, yes," said Mistress Anne, with a sigh, and a meaning look at Gil.

"He makes you a pleasant companion, Mistress Anne," said Gil, quietly.

"Oh, yes," she cried; "he is delightful--so much Court news--such polish; it is indeed a pleasure to meet a true gentleman down here."

"Which I am not, then," thought Gil.

"Will nothing move him to jealousy?" said Anne Beckley to herself; and with her eyes flashing angrily, she laid her hand on her father's arm, and after a polite salutation they passed on.

"Poor girl!" said Gil to himself. "I am not a vain man, but if she be not ogling, and cap-setting, and trying to draw me on at her apron-string, I am an ass. Why," he continued, turning to gaze after the little party just as Mistress Anne turned her own head quickly to look after him, and, seeing that he was doing the same, snatched herself away as if in dudgeon--"one would think that she was trying to draw me on by her looks, and seeking to make me jealous of this gay lad from town. Poor lass! it is labour in vain; and she would not cause me a pang if she married him to-morrow. What's that?"

"That" was a slight rustling noise amongst the trees, followed by a "clink-clink-clink" of flint against steel; and striding out of the path and going in the direction of the sound Gil came upon Wat Kilby, seated in a mossy nook, blowing at a spark in some tinder and holding his little pipe ready in his hand.

"Hollo, Wat!" cried Gil.

The gaunt old fellow went on blowing without paying the slightest heed to the summons, then applied a rough match dipped in brimstone, whose end, on application to the glowing spark in the tinder, first melted, and then began to burn with a fluttering blue flame. This was soon communicated to the splint of wood, and the flame was then carefully held in a scarlet cap taken from Wat's grizzly half-bald head for shelter from the soft summer breeze, while he held the bowl of his little pipe to it and solemnly puffed it alight, after which he rose from his knees, took up a sitting position with his back against an old beech, gazed up in the speaker's face and replied--

"Hollo, skipper!"

"I wanted to see you Wat," said Gil. "Look here, old lad, how came you to be hanging about the house last night when you gave the signal?"

"Hah!" ejaculated Wat, exhaling a thin puff of fine blue smoke and gazing straight before him through the sun-pleached foliage of the forest.

"Do you hear me?" cried Gil, impatiently, as he stamped his heavy foot upon the moss.

"Hah!" ejaculated Wat again. "I was there on the watch."

"Yes, yes; and what did you see?"

"Mas' Cobbe come out soon after you had gone across the little bridge and pook it out of the way."

"Yes, yes; go on."

"Then I give you the signal two or three times before I could make you hear, and just then I heard another step and hid away, and 'fore I had time to do more--in he went. You know."

"Yes; but look here, Wat, how came you to be there?"

"I was there to save my skipper from being pooked," growled Wat, slowly and between puffs of his pipe. "It was as if I had been sent on purpose."

"It's a lie," cried Gil, angrily. "Wat, you are an old trickster and a cheat. How dare you try to deceive me?"

"There," said Wat, quietly addressing a beech pollard before him; "that's gratitude for watching over and saving him from being pooked."

"Of course you saved me from danger, just as any brave man would try to save another, and more especially one of a crew, his skipper. There is no merit attached to that. Now look here, Wat, confess, for I am sure I know."

"I don't know about no confessing," growled Wat; "you're a skipper, not a priest. S'pose I asked you what you were doing there? If the captain sets such an example, what can you 'spect of the crew?"

Gil twisted his moustache angrily, and then turned sharply on his follower.

"You were not watching me?"

"I arn't going to tell no lies. No."

"You as good as say, then, that you were on the same errand as I?"

"I arn't going to sail round no headlands when there's a port right in front. I arn't ashamed. Yes, I were."

"Look here, Wat Kilby," said Gil, after taking a step or two up and down in front of the old fellow, who calmly leaned back and gazed straight before him--"look here, Wat Kilby, you have been like a second father to me."

"Hah!" And then a puff of smoke.

"And I would not willingly hurt your feelings."

"Hah!"

"But I hold in great respect the people who dwell in yon house, and I will not have them in anywise annoyed."

"Then I wouldn't go coming the Spanish Don, under their windows o' nights," growled Wat.

"Silence, sir," cried Gil.

As he spoke, the young man's face flushed with shame and mortification at being twitted with his amorous passages, but there was a look of command and an imperious tone in his voice that told of one accustomed to be obeyed, and the great lank muscular man, tanned and hardened by a life of exposure, shuffled uneasily in his seat and let his little pipe go out.

"If it had been another man, Wat," continued Gil, "I should have given him a week in irons for daring to go near the place."

"What! after his skipper set an example?" growled Wat.

"Silence, sir," roared Gil, catching the old fellow by the shoulder. "Bah!" he continued, calming down, "Why do you anger me, Wat?" and he loosed his hold.

"Oh, haul away, young 'un," growled Wat, with a grim smile, "you don't hurt me. I like to see what a sturdy young lion you've grown. That's your father, every inch of him, as did that. Hah! he was a one."

"Let him rest, Wat," cried Gil impatiently. "My father would never have looked over an act of folly or disobedience. Neither will I."

"You never ordered me not to go," growled Wat.

"Then I do now, sir! Look here. What does it mean? Are you not ashamed of yourself, carrying on these gallantries? There was that Carib woman out at Essequibo."

"Hah!" with a smokeless exhalation.

"And the flat-nosed Malayan in the Eastern Seas."

"Hah!"

"And that Chinese, yellow, moon-faced woman."

"Hah!"

"And the black girl on the Guinea Coast."

"Hah!"

"And that Portingallo wench, and the Spanish lass with the dark eyes, and that great Greek, and a score beside."

"Hah! Yes, skipper," said Wat calmly, "I've got an ugly shell, but the core inside is very soft."

"Soft? Yes."

"But you're going back a many years, skipper."

"I need," cried Gil angrily. "A man of your age, too! Why, Wat, you're sixty, if you are a day!"

"Sixty-four," growled Wat quietly, as he took out his flint and steel and screwed up his grim weather-beaten face.

"Then it's a disgrace to you!"

"Disgrace? What's being sixty-four got to do with it?"

"Why you're an old man, sir!"

"Old man? Not I, captain. I'm as young as ever I was, and as fond of a pretty girl. I'm not old; and, if I was, I get fonder of 'em every year I live."

"It is disgraceful, sir!" cried Gil, angrily. "You ought to be thinking of your coffin instead of pretty girls."

That touched Wat home, and he sprang to his feet with the activity of a boy.

"No, I oughtn't, skipper," he cried, excitedly. "And, look here, don't you say that there terrifying word to me again--I hate it. When it's all over, if you don't have me dropped overboard, just as I am, at sea, or even here at home in the little river, I'll come back and haunt you. Coffin, indeed! Talk about such trade as that! Just as if I hadn't sailed round the world like a man."

He reseated himself, and began once more to use his flint and steel, but this time viciously.

"Once for all then, Wat, I will not have this sort of thing here. A man of your years hanging about after that great ugly dairy wench."

"Who did?" cried Wat sharply. "Nay, captain, never."

"Have I been mistaken, then?" cried Gil, eagerly. "Stop, though--you don't mean to say that you have been casting your ancient eyes on Janet?"

"Why not?" cried Wat, leaping up once more. "She's as pretty a creature as ever I set my ancient eyes, as you call 'em, on."

"Why, man, she's eighteen, and you are sixty-four."

"All the better," cried Wat. "Janet it is, and I'm going to wed her."

"Does she know it?"

"Not quite, captain, not yet. Look ye here, skipper, my poor old mother had a plum grow on a tree by the cottage wall, and when I was a boy I meant to have that plum. Did I go and pick it right off and eat it there and then? Nay, I set my eyes on that plum while it was young and green, and saw it grow day by day rounder and redder, and covered with soft down and riper purple, and more rich and plump, and at last, when I picked that plum, I had a hundred times more 'joyment than if I'd plucked it when I saw it first. That's what I'm doing with little Janet, and that's what Master Peasegood calls a parabole."

Gil felt that he might just as well argue with a rock as with his rugged old follower, so he changed the subject.

"When will the _Golden Fleece_ be fit for sea again?"

"It'll be a month before they've got in the new keel, captain, and then she's got to be well overhauled."

"It will be two months, then, before we can load up?"

"Ay, all that," was the reply. "Go on getting in the meal and bacon. Have it ready for placing in store. We must have everything ready there for putting on board."

"Ay, ay, skipper."

"Keep the men from going near. Let there be no hanging about the valley on any pretence. See to that with those two last lads."

"Ay," growled Wat. "The others can be trusted, of course."

Gil nodded, and walked away, while Wat went on striking a light.

"He's half afraid I should get in his way," growled the old fellow, "but he needn't be. Much better be afraid of some one finding out the store. There's a new man come to live here, and a new cottage built. The place is getting too thick with people, and if we don't mind we shall be found out. Who's yonder?" he continued, shading his eyes, and gazing through the wood. "Churr and Mother Goodhugh. An' if we're ever found out, that Churr's the man who will do it. And if--if--if--he--does--the captain--will--hang--him--at--th' yard-arm--sure--as--he's--a--sinful-- soul--hah!"

There was a puff in lighting the pipe between each of these last words, ending with an expiration, after which Wat Kilby leaned back on the moss, half-closed his eyes, and lay watching the couple he had named as they stood talking in the wood.

Volume 1, Chapter VII.

HOW MISTRESS ANNE SOUGHT A SPELL.

The days passed swiftly on in the lonely little valley where Jeremiah Cobbe had cast his lot. The trees flourished, and the wondrous variety of wild-flowers, for which that part of the Sussex weald has always been famed, succeeded each other, and made gay the banks and shaughs, while beneath the spreading oaks and beeches in the great forest the verdant carpet was always bright. The many streamlets went on carving their way through the yellow sandrock, and fell in a thousand tiny cascades, whose soft spray moistened the fronds of the luxuriant ferns. All was beautiful, for nature seemed there never to resent the fact that the ironmaster's workers delved ore from the hill-side, cut down the woods and burned them to charcoal, and then melted the iron to run in orange streams in the deftly-formed moulds for howitzer, culverin, or simple gun. There had been accidents, when, with a sudden roar, some powder-shed had blown up, blasting the herbage and leaves around; but a few showers and the bright hot sun soon restored all to its pristine state, and, embowered in trees, the works sent up their charcoal fumes without poisoning the air, or doing more harm than the saline breezes that swept over the hills from off the sea.

Mistress Anne Beckley, with Sir Thomas, and at times with Dame Beckley herself, was a constant attendant at the Pool with simples and wonderful decoctions of camomile, agrimony, balm, and bitter cress, all of which the dame declared were certain to subdue the fever in Sir Mark's brain; but somehow they did not, and he lingered on at the Pool-house, listening to the nightingales, gathering wild-flowers, refusing to see a leech, and declaring that he only wanted time.

He was not confined to his bed, but lounged on couch and easy chair, or walked slowly in the garden, languid and pale, with his arm supported in a sling, receiving with a patient smile the sympathising glances of Mistress Anne, who fawned upon him and tenderly watched his every change.

But he could not leave the Pool-house, and shook his head sadly when, urged by his daughter, Sir Thomas protested that the invalid ought to be brought back to the Moat.

Dame Beckley's preparations did not seem to do the good she anticipated; still they did some, for, being composed of so much water and vegetable juices, they must have had beneficial effects upon the roses and other plants around his bedroom window--plants which the young courtier duly moistened from the vessel sent to him. Otherwise fared the wine, for of that he partook liberally, as well as of Jeremiah Cobbe's strong drinks.

It must have been from dissatisfaction with her mother's treatment of the patient that one day,--after a visit to the Pool-house, in whose quiet cool parlour she had found Sir Mark lying back in an easy chair with a snowy pillow beneath his head, and with Mace seated near reading to him at his wish from a little book of ballads written by one Sir Thomas Wyatt,--Mistress Anne, instead of going straight back home, sent the serving-man, who was her guardian, to spend an hour with the men at the mill, and herself turned down a narrow winding track almost overgrown with bearbind, briony, and grass.

"I hate her," she said to herself, as she set her teeth and drove her nails into her palms. "I saw--I saw her looking at me with triumph flashing out of her wicked eyes; and I'll kill her, I'll poison her, before she shall beat me again. If he would only get well--if he would only get well."

A slight rustle on her left made her start, but it was only a blackbird bursting through the dense mass of tangled growth that rose like a vast hedge on either side of the winding track, from which the wanton brambles and lithe boughs kept thrusting across young shoots like friendly hands to grasp each other and join in claiming the rugged lane as their own by conquest's right.

A little further on a snake that had been sunning itself on a stump raised its head, uttered a low hiss, and glided rapidly away amidst the dense undergrowth; while again, a few yards further on, she came upon a short thick adder, lying right in her path, and apparently very careless about leaving it.

It was remarkable now that Anne Beckley displayed no fear of the wild animals she met. She had started at the blackbird's rustle, believing that she was watched, but on seeing the reptiles, now that there was no Sir Mark to whom she might cling for support, she broke off a slight hazel branch, and cut sharply at the adder where it lay; and as it raised its head and struck at her she cut it again and again till she had disabled it, and ended by crushing its head in the earth.

Then throwing aside her stick she hastened on, but the exertion had made her warm, and seating herself upon a mossy part of the bank she stayed to rest in the cool damp shade, beneath a great oak-tree.