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SEA-DOGS ALL!
A Tale of Forest and Sea
by
TOM BEVAN
Author of
"Red Dickon the Outlaw,"
"The Fen Robbers,"
etc., etc.
[Frontispiece: Dolly stood near the fire, her face rosy with the heat]
Thomas Nelson and Sons
London, Edinburgh, Dublin, and New York
1911
CONTENTS.
I. The Man in Black
II. The Plotters
III. Two Friends
IV. Johnnie Morgan takes a Walk
V. Master Windybank
VI. A Sinister Meeting
VII. In the Toils
VIII. Master Windybank walks abroad
IX. The Hunt
X. Master Windybank rebels
XI. Darkness and the River
XII. Snaring a Flock of Night Ravens
XIII. A Double Fight
XIV. What happened in Westbury Steeple
XV. A Letter from Court
XVI. To London Town
XVII. Sir Walter as Chaperon
XVIII. Three Broken Mariners
XIX. Paignton Rob's Story
XX. Rob dines at "Ye Swanne"
XXI. Morgan goes to Whitehall
XXII. The Queen
XXIII. Johnnie sees many Sights
XXIV. Two Chance Wayfarers
XXV. Brother Basil
XXVI. All on a bright March Morning
XXVII. In Plymouth
XXVIII. The Parlour of the "Blue Dolphin"
XXIX. The Widow's House
XXX. Ho! for the Spanish Main
XXXI. In the Bay of San Joseph
XXXII. A Glimpse of the Fabled City
XXXIII. Wandering in a Maze
XXXIV. Flood and Fever
XXXV. A Foe
XXXVI. The Attack on the Village
XXXVII. Council Fires in Two Places
XXXVIII. The Way back
XXXIX. John Oxenham's Creek
XL. A Haven of Peace
XLI. The Trap
XLII. Captives
XLIII. In Panama
XLIV. The Trial
XLV. For Faith and Country!
XLVI. The Galley Slaves
XLVII. Hernando speaks
XLVIII. The Revolt of the Slaves
XLIX. Eastward Ho!
L. Home
LI. The Forest again--and the Sea
List of Illustrations
Cover art
Dolly stood near the fire, her face rosy with the heat . . _Frontispiece_
The odds were hopelessly against him.
SEA-DOGS ALL!
Chapter I.
THE MAN IN BLACK.
The river-path along the Severn shore at Gatcombe was almost knee-deep
with turbid water, and only a post here and there showed where river
ordinarily ended and firm land began. Fishers and foresters stood in
the pelting rain and buffeting wind anxiously calculating what havoc
the sudden summer storm might work, helpless themselves to put forth a
hand to save anything from its fury. Stout doors and firm casements
(both were needed in the river-side hamlet) bent with the fury of the
sou'-wester that beat upon them. The tide roared up the narrowing
estuary like a mill-race, and the gale tore off the tops of the waves,
raised them with the lashing raindrops, and hurled both furiously
against everything that fringed the shore. Gatcombe Pill leapt and
plunged muddily between its high, red banks, and the yellow tide surged
up the opening and held back the seething waters like a dam. There was
black sky above, and many-coloured earth and water below.
The lading jetty against the village only appeared at odd moments above
the tumult of waters, and a couple of timber ships that lay on the
north side, partially loaded, were plunging and leaping at their anchor
cables like two dogs at the end of their chains. Great oaken logs
bobbed up and down like corks, or raced with the current upstream; the
product of many weeks' timber-cutting in the forest would be scattered
as driftwood from Gloucester to the shores of Devon and Wales.
On the high bank above Gatcombe, one other man, half hidden by the
thick trees, braved the fury of the storm. There was nothing of the
fisher or forester about him; the pale, worn face and the tall, lean
figure soberly clad in black betokened the monk or the scholar, but
claimed no kinship with them that toiled in the woodlands or won a
living from the dangerous sea. Leaning against a giant beech that
rocked in wild rhythm with the storm, he watched the wind and tide at
their work of devastation, an odd smile of satisfaction playing about
the corners of his thin lips.
"A hundred candles to St. James for this tempest!" he murmured. "If
the ships do but break loose and get aground, I will tramp Christendom
for the money to build him a church." But though the man in black
watched the river for the space of two hours longer, his hopes of utter
destruction were unrealized; the cables held, the rain ceased, the wind
abated, and the tide began to run seawards once more. Bit by bit the
jetty rose above the swirling waters. Inshore the sands of the
river-bed were uncovered, and the fishers and wharfmen swarmed along
them and on the pier, saving from the sea the logs of oak that were
within reach. For a while the man on the cliff watched them; then he
turned aside into the dripping recesses of the forest. "Comfort
thyself," he said, tapping his bosom as he walked; "the omens are good.
What water hath commenced, the fire shall finish!"
Almost upon the instant a sturdy figure broke from the bushes above
Gatcombe Pill and hurried along the cliff towards the harbour.
Deep-chested, full-throated, weather-stained, compacted of brawn and
sinew, he looked the ruddy-faced, daring sailor-man, every inch of him.
From crown to toe he was clad in homely gray; but if, on the one hand,
the ass peeps out from the borrowed lion's skin, so will royalty shine
through fustian; and the newcomer had the air of a king among men. He
hallooed to the ships, and then hastily scrambled down the cliff.
Only the groaning of the trees and rustling of the undergrowth hid the
footfalls of the man in black from the ears of the man in gray. He was
looking for him, but the time when they should meet was not yet come.