Call it what you will; I say Ill 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, Ill hear no more. Look ye here, Captain Gil, youre 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 mans 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.
How the Founder set a Trap to catch a Lover
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 woodmans 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 fathers 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 fathers 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 Elizabeths adventurous spirits, who fought the Spaniards under the English flag, half raised himself and cried
Brave lads Gods will this is your captain now!
And then, as he flung himself wildly upon his fathers 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 Kilbys 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 Raleighs 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 founders needs; sulphur from Sicily or Iceland; Chinese salt, as they called it saltpetre from the east.
And now after all these years, when the captains 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.