AT THE SIGN OF THE PESTLE AND MORTAR.
On the afternoon upon which the good ship _Pearl_ dropped anchor in
Sutton Pool, Peter Trollope was less busy than it was his wont to be at
that time of day. His one customer since noon had been a poor farrier's
apprentice, who had come in to have an aching tooth pulled out--an
operation which had occupied the barber-surgeon scarcely a minute, and
earned for him the total sum of twopence. But he had seen the ship enter
the harbour, and knew well that sooner or later some of her crew would
pay him a visit. In the meantime he engaged himself with two large,
wild-looking birds, which he kept imprisoned in a dark box on a shelf
near the window. He had just been feeding them with raw meat and was
closing the lid of the box, when the shop-door was flung open and his
son Timothy strode within, making a great clatter with his sword as he
dragged the weapon behind him along the stone floor.
Tim threw his cap upon the oak settle at the farther end of the room,
seated himself in an easy chair before the fire, and stretched out his
legs at full length in front of him with all the freedom of a full-grown
man. The bull-dog, which had been asleep in one of the warm corners of
the ingle, crept out yawning and wagging his stump of a tail by way of
greeting.
"So thou hast at last thought fit to come in and see if we be all alive
still?" said Peter in an agrieved tone, as he regarded his stalwart son.
"Thou'rt a dutiful son to thy poor parents, in all conscience. 'Tis
shameful of thee, thus to neglect us, Tim. Thou'rt so vastly taken up
with all the great folks at Modbury--my lord this, and my lady that, and
all the rest of them--that thou dost seem to forget thine own flesh and
blood. 'Twas only yesterday, as I live, that I saw thee passing by my
very door without so much as looking in to give me a good day! Zounds,
boy, 'tis most unseemly!"
Timothy stroked the dog's ears without raising his eyes to his
justly-offended father.
"I had been bidden to go quickly on my errand, father," he explained,
"and I dared not tarry by the way. I might not even have come in at this
present time to see thee, but that my master hath given me leave while
he goes to the end of the town to take a message from my lord to Sir
Francis Drake."
"Methinks Master Oglander might have saved himself a journey," remarked
the barber; "for 'tis only a half-hour since that I saw Sir Francis
passing the door here, on his way, as I do believe, to Modbury Manor;
for he wore his new damson silk cape with the gold-lace trimmings, and
you may be sure by that token that he was going to where there will be
women's eyes to look upon him."
Peter had approached the fireplace, and now stood with his back to the
crackling logs, facing his son.
"I am sorry," he continued in a more cheery tone, "that Master Gilbert
did not chance to come in with thee, Tim. I have wished to see him these
many days past on a matter of business. I have here a pair of fine young
goshawks that he might be willing to buy from me."
"Show them to me," demanded Timothy, rising from his chair. "If they be
goshawks indeed, and in goodly condition, I doubt not that he will
gladly buy them. Let me see them. I shall soon know if they be of any
use. But I will wager you ere I set eyes on them that they are no more
fit to fly against a pheasant than a mere sparrow-hawk might be."
"Nay, I cannot myself swear to them," said the barber, crossing to the
shelf near the window, and proceeding to open the box, "for I have not
been brought up among gentlefolks as thou hast been, and have never in
all my life been present at a hawking party. But the lad who left them
in my keeping did positively declare them to be of the true goshawk
breed, and he bade me sell them for him if perchance I might find a
likely customer." He threw back the lid of the box. "Here they be," said
he.
Timothy looked over his father's shoulder at the birds. Then he thrust
his gloved hand deep into the box. There was a noisy flapping of wings
and a harsh rasping screech. Tim brought forth his hand with one of the
hawks perched upon it. He held it aloft, examining the bird with
critical eye.
"He is somewhat short i' the neck and flabby of flesh," he remarked,
with the air of one who was a judge of such points, "but the head is of
good shape, and the eyes are clear. He is fierce enough too, o' my
conscience. Here, put him back, lest he bite me! And now," he added,
when the bird was restored to its prison, "what want you for the pair of
them? No cozening, mind you. I will not have my master overcharged even
by my own father."
The barber-surgeon named the sum at which he was willing to sell the
birds, and Tim at once proceeded to beat down the price to half the
amount. Neither noticed in the midst of their dispute that a customer
had entered the shop.
"Hi there, master barber!" cried the new-comer. "Cease your wrangling,
and come and cut me my hair! Dost think I am going to wait for you all
night?"
"Presently, your worship--presently," answered Peter, snatching up his
scissors and comb. Then, turning to his son, he added: "Thy mother is
laid abed with her old illness, Tim; get thee upstairs to her for
awhile."
Timothy obediently disappeared through the door at the back of the shop,
stumbling up the stairs with noisy feet and equally noisy sword; while
his father, snipping his scissors merrily in his right hand and thus
making a show of being exceedingly busy, offered his customer a chair
where the light from the window might fall upon him.
He was a stranger to Peter Trollope, and therefore, it must be assumed,
a stranger to Plymouth also. His long, untidy hair and beard, his
bronzed skin, and, indeed, his whole appearance, betokened that he had
newly come off the sea. His doublet, which had once been velvet, was
worn threadbare; the colour, whatever it may originally have been, had
suffered by the salt water, and was now an indistinct gray, stained here
and there with dark-brown patches, which Peter surmised to be the stains
of hardened blood. It was plain to see that the man was in some sort a
warrior as well as a traveller.
While the barber was spreading a white napkin about him to protect his
clothing from the clippings of hair which must presently fall from the
scissors, he looked into the stranger's face, and perceived that the
right cheek was marred by an old wound--a long straight wound like the
cut of a knife, beginning below the eye and ending somewhere in the
midst of his thick black beard.
"Well?" quoth the stranger, seeing that the barber hesitated to make a
start. "Cut me my hair, I say."
"I am ready to execute your worship's will," announced Peter with a low
bow, as he snipped his scissors. "Prithee, sir, will you have your
worship's hair cut after the Italian manner, short and round, and then
flounced with the curling-irons, or like a Spaniard's, long at the ears
and curled like to the two ends of a new moon; or will you be
Frenchified with a love-lock down to your shoulder, whereon you may
hang your lady's favour? The English cut is base in these days of
fashion, and gentlemen scorn it. Speak the word, sir; and howsoever you
would have it, it shall be done."
"Nay, a plague on your love-locks and curling-irons," the stranger cried
impatiently. "Do it as you please, but howsoever you do it, do it
quickly. I know naught of your strange fashions and monstrous manners of
haircutting. I have been absent from England so many years, that now
when I come back I am as one who hath risen from out his grave to find
all things changed."
"In truth, sir," observed the barber, "your worship will indeed find
many changes, alike in government and in manners, if so be your absence
hath been so long as you do say. Her Majesty's ministers and
counsellors, indeed, have changed as often as the seasons. But the Queen
herself, God bless her, is yet with us; so England is merry England
still, and long may it so remain!"
Peter was now busy at work shearing his customer's plenteous crop of
tangled hair.
"And how many years in all did your worship say that you had been
abroad?" he ventured presently to inquire.
"More years than I care to number," was the somewhat curt reply.
"Ah!" responded Peter. "Then, sir, you had no hand in the glorious
defeat of the great Armada of Spain? Haply your worship was in some
far-distant country at that great time?"
The stranger shifted his position in his chair. His fingers moved
restlessly.
"Haply I was," he answered. "But had I chanced to be at the very
extremities of the earth, methinks I should still have heard rumour of
the matter; for wherever there be Spaniards and wherever there be
Englishmen, they are alike disposed to boast of their own prowess on
that occasion. And from neither the one nor the other is it possible to
arrive at the simple truth."
"The simple truth is simply this, your honour," returned Peter Trollope,
with a proud smile, "that the Spaniards, despite their greater ships and
their greater army of soldiers, were utterly routed and defeated." And
the gossiping barber proceeded to tell the whole story to his listening
customer as he continued with his clipping.
At length, having fairly come to the beard, he broke off in his wordy
narrative and requested to know if his worship would have his beard cut
short and to a peak like Sir Francis Drake's, or broad and round like a
spade. "Or shall I shave it off," said he, "and leave only your
worship's moustachios?" But he had scarcely made the last suggestion
when his eye was once more caught by the cut on the man's cheek. "I
would advise that the beard be left as it is," he said, "for it doth
help to hide the wound upon your face. Although, indeed, there be many
men in Plymouth who would be mightily proud to display so honourable a
scar, for I doubt not your worship came by it in some desperate battle
against our enemies of Spain."
It was at this moment that Timothy returned into the shop. He overheard
his father's remark, and noticed that for some reason the stranger
winced, as though he were far from being proud of the old wound.
"I do perceive that 'tis the cut from a sword," added the
barber-surgeon, looking at the scar more closely. "I trust, for the
honour of England, that you slew the rascal who gave it you."
"'Tis no sword-cut, but a wound from an Indian's arrow, shot at me from
ambush," declared the traveller; and there was a curious tone in his
voice--a tone which seemed to indicate that he was in reality giving
only a half explanation, or perhaps even a totally false one. In any
case he hastened very plainly to change the subject.
"You named one Francis Drake just now," said he. "Peradventure you can
inform me if he be still alive?"
"Alive? Ay, that he is! Alive and well, the Lord be praised! and in
Plymouth town at this present time--ah! I beg your worship's pardon.
Perhaps I caught your cheek with the point of my scissors?"
The stranger had given a slight nervous start, and a look of displeasure
if not of actual annoyance had come into his dark eyes.
"In Plymouth at this present time?" he repeated. And then he muttered
some words in a foreign tongue, which neither Timothy nor his father
could comprehend.
"Had you chanced to come in but an hour earlier you might even have
encountered him," remarked the barber, "for he passed by this very door,
and returned my salutation most graciously, as, indeed, he doth always
do, whenever I come nigh him; for he is by no means proud, I promise
you, for all that he hath done more for England than any other living
man. But I am talking thus while it may be that your worship doth know
him far better than I--while it may even be that you are his personal
friend."
The man with the scarred cheek made no response to this last remark, but
only leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes and knitting his brows.
He remained silent until Trollope had clipped his beard to a
satisfactory shape and was giving it the final touches. Then the warrior
looked up suddenly and said with curious earnestness, as though he were
seeking an answer to a most important question:
"There dwelt in the neighbourhood of Plymouth a score of years ago or
so, a certain nobleman by name Baron Champernoun. Canst tell me, master
barber, if there be any of his lordship's family still dwelling in these
parts?"
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 passing well known to all men of Devon," answered Peter as
he surveyed his workmanship 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 passing 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 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?