JOHNNIE MORGAN TAKES A WALK.
At the foot of the hill leading out of Blakeney northwards towards
Newnham stood a many-gabled, substantial farmhouse. A plantation of
oaks backed it, and eastwards the meadows stretched away to the Severn.
The house was in the possession of John Morgan, a verderer[1] of the
forest, and the good folk of the forest and river were proud to point
to him as a "proper figure of a man." "Johnnie," as he was familiarly
styled by his associates, stood a good two inches over six feet, was
straight as a fir and tough as a young oak. He had just turned his
twentieth year, and was as fleet of foot as the stags that he guarded.
Dark-eyed and handsome, light-hearted and jovial, a good singer of a
good song, he was as jolly a companion as one might meet on a long
summer's day.
The morning was hot, and the June sun almost at its zenith. The gale
that had rocked the tall trees in fury but a few days before was almost
forgotten in the windless weather that had succeeded it. Master Morgan
had sauntered along one of the broad woodland paths, and was now lying
on his back in a sweet-smelling bed of bracken, gazing up through the
trees to the blue sky beyond. Johnnie was dreaming the happy dreams of
youth and the summer's noontide. The blue of the heavens haloed his
thoughts, and a pair of sweet blue eyes looked out from the midst of
them. A sigh escaped him. "Plague on 't!" he cried petulantly, "I
cannot get verses or rhymes into marching order. My head aches with a
tumble of conceits and dainty fancies. I could whisper a thousand
pretty things to yonder perky robin; I cannot give tongue to one of
them when Mistress Dorothy turns her eyes upon me; and now that my
heart yearns to set them in verse for her reading, I cannot frame a
line that doth not limp and stumble. What a thing it is that I can
sing the tears into mine eyes with another fellow's verses and cannot
build a couplet of mine own." Johnnie closed his eyes, puckered his
brow, and thought hard.
For the better part of an hour Morgan had the cool nook in the woodland
all to himself, and he dreamt of a pair of blue eyes, rhymed them with
"skies," joined "love" with "dove," "sweet" with "fleet," "rosy" with
"posy," and "heart" with "part," and cudgelled his brains for images
and conceits that would express in some scant measure the charms of
pretty Mistress Dorothy Dawe. But his lines would not prance and
curvet as he wished them to do; they laboured along in a heavy,
cart-horse fashion, so that Johnnie at length reluctantly recalled his
wandering wits to the consideration of the practical things of life.
And, immediately upon doing so, he became conscious of the presence of
an intruder upon his privacy. Some one was moving very stealthily
through the bracken; the young forester detected the quick breathing of
a man and he held his own breath in an instant, whilst his body
remained as rigid as though it had been a fallen log of oak. He cast
his eye down the line of buttons on the front of his doublet and
carefully scanned his belt. It held no weapon save a hunting-knife.
His hearing became doubly acute at a sign of danger, and he fixed the
spot from which each faint rustle proceeded. Meanwhile his brain was
busy. Who should be stealing along within a few yards of the pathway?
No game was afoot in the immediate neighbourhood, and no forester would
be worming himself along in such a fashion. An honest man would walk
upright. "This fellow is a rogue," commented Morgan. The bracken
fronds curled high above him, and he knew that he was securely hidden.
The rustling sounds circled round rather than approached him, and they
finally ceased at a spot on the edge of the pathway about twenty yards
below where Morgan lay listening.
The forester remained very still; the other made no sign. Morgan came
to the conclusion that his presence was unsuspected, so he lay in wait
to see what was afoot. Time flew on; to one, at least, the silence
became irksome.
Sounds at last! Some one was coming down the pathway humming a song.
The spy--for such he was--stirred. Morgan noiselessly raised himself
on his elbow. The singer came on; his voice was rich and musical, and
the young fellow's ears tingled with pleasure. He ventured to peep
above the bracken. A dark form was half visible in front of him, and
the face was turned towards the direction whence the song was coming.
The head disappeared; Morgan ducked also. He could give no guess as to
the identity of the man who lay before him. But his mind was made up
as to the spy's intentions. Villainy was plainly foreshadowed. He
drew his knife from his belt. The footfalls of the traveller were now
audible. He came abreast of the lurking foe; he passed him. There was
a sudden leap; then another. A steel blade flashed in the sunlight.
The song ceased and the singer turned. Another second and the dagger
would have been in his breast. But at the fateful moment of time the
stroke was arrested by Morgan's hand. The would-be assassin turned
with the hiss and wriggle of a viper; his strength was astonishing,
and, ere Morgan was aware, the sharp stab entered his own arm. He
loosened his grip with an exclamation of pain. The spy darted like a
black shadow into the trees--and was gone.
After an instant of hesitation Morgan and the stranger dashed after
him. They ran hither and thither, but found nothing. On the pathway
they met again, and, for the first time, spoke. He whose life had been
attempted took Morgan's wounded arm in his hands. "I owe thee, if not
a life, at least a whole skin," he said. "I am deeply thy debtor."
"Sir Walter Raleigh can owe nothing to a forest man," exclaimed Morgan.
"Ah! thou knowest me. What is thy name?"
"John Morgan, heart and soul at your service!"
"I have heard of thee from my kinsman, and the reports were of an
excellent quality. Come, let me see to thy hurt. We can gossip
afterwards."
Soldiers and huntsmen are usually adepts at rough and ready surgery;
the flow of blood from Morgan's wound was stanched and the injured limb
bound up. Sir Walter inquired how he had so providentially got upon
the track of the spy, and Johnnie poured out the story of his poetic
difficulties. The knight laughed heartily, and offered his help.
"I am a bit of a rhymster, as thou knowest," he said. "What is the
name of the bonny maiden whose eyes have driven thee to verse-making?"
"Mistress Dorothy Dawe," replied the forester a little sheepishly--"a
sweet wench, Sir Walter, as e'er the sun shone upon. And I thought her
name as pretty as her face, but, plague on't, I cannot fix a rhyme to
't."
"And there I sympathize with thee most heartily, Master Morgan. When I
was of thine age and went a-sweethearting, my own fancy lighted upon a
dainty damosel yclept Dorothy, and, like thee, I found the name most
unreasonable in the matter of rhyme and rhythm. Cut it down to
'Dolly,' and that most unkind rhyme 'folly' straightway dings in one's
ears."
"How didst thou surmount the difficulty?"
"How? By keeping the name well in the middle of my line. But there
are a hundred pretty appellations that befit a maiden. Thou canst call
her thy 'sun,' thy 'moon,' thy 'star,' thy 'light, 'life,' 'goddess,'
and so on through a very bookful of terms. Shall I make thee a verse
as we jog along?"
"A thousand thanks! but no. I will stand on mine own footing, or stand
not at all. I will win the wench by mine own parts or merits, or else
wish her joy with a better man. She shall love me decked in mine own
plain russet, not in velvet and laces borrowed from another's wardrobe."
"Valiantly spoken, Master Morgan. I like thy spirit, and, beshrew me,
'twill serve thee better with a sensible maiden than any amount of
pretty speeches and cooing verses. 'Tis a poor man that hath not faith
in himself. In wooing, as in fighting, 'tis the brave heart and the
honest soul that gain the clay; and the quick, strong arm serves the
world better than the glib tongue. But let us get to this business
that brought us together this morning. Thou dost not know my
assailant?"
"Not from Adam. Hath your worship no knowledge of him?"
"No certain knowledge, Master Morgan; but I can give a shrewd guess or
two concerning him. Thou hast heard of the plot of King Philip to
destroy the forest?"
"Ay, the rumour was abroad strong enough in the springtime, but since
Admiral Drake came down I have heard nothing. I thought the rascal
plotters had fled, for 'tis well known the health of a Spaniard suffers
grievously if he do but breathe the same air as our gallant sailor."
"That is so; but some are of tougher constitutions than others, and
they do not sicken in a day. The fellow who hath left his mark upon
thee is an emissary of Spain. I did not know my life was threatened,
but the admiral may find a foe in any thicket. I am heartily sorry the
villain escaped us."
"I am downright ashamed on 't!" cried Johnnie. He drew himself up to
his full height and stretched out a brawny arm. "I ought to have
crushed him 'twixt finger and thumb as I would a wasp. A lean,
shrivelled, hole-and-corner coward!"
"But as strong and supple as a wild cat," commented Raleigh.
"Ay, and he left the mark of his claws behind him," added Morgan. "He
was no weakling."
"And he is not the only one lying in wait; nor is he the master hand in
this business. You verderers must bestir yourselves, or that which is
entrusted to you will go up to the heavens in smoke. I will wend with
thee to Newnham. The admiral goes thither on the tide this afternoon
on the Queen's business, and 'twill be as well that he, and those that
come to meet him, should see evidence of the activity of our secret
foes."
So the knight and Master Morgan mended their pace along the woodland
way.
[1] A warden of the forest and an administrator of "forest law."