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.