Who did? cried Wat sharply. Nay, captain, never.
Have I been mistaken, then? cried Gil, eagerly. Stop, though you dont mean to say that you have been casting your ancient eyes on Janet?
Why not? cried Wat, leaping up once more. Shes as pretty a creature as ever I set my ancient eyes, as you call em, on.
Why, man, shes eighteen, and you are sixty-four.
All the better, cried Wat. Janet it is, and Im 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 Id plucked it when I saw it first. Thats what Im doing with little Janet, and thats 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?
Itll be a month before theyve got in the new keel, captain, and then shes 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.
Hes half afraid I should get in his way, growled the old fellow, but he neednt be. Much better be afraid of some one finding out the store. Theres a new man come to live here, and a new cottage built. The place is getting too thick with people, and if we dont mind we shall be found out. Whos yonder? he continued, shading his eyes, and gazing through the wood. Churr and Mother Goodhugh. An if were ever found out, that Churrs the man who will do it. And if if if he does the captain will hang him at th yard-arm sure as hes 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.
How Mistress Anne sought a Spell
whose soft spray moistened the fronds of the luxuriant ferns. All was beautiful, for nature seemed there never to resent the fact that the ironmasters workers delved ore from the hill-side, cut down the woods and burned them to charcoal, and then melted the iron to run in orange streams in the deftly-formed moulds for howitzer, culverin, or simple gun. There had been accidents, when, with a sudden roar, some powder-shed had blown up, blasting the herbage and leaves around; but a few showers and the bright hot sun soon restored all to its pristine state, and, embowered in trees, the works sent up their charcoal fumes without poisoning the air, or doing more harm than the saline breezes that swept over the hills from off the sea.
Mistress Anne Beckley, with Sir Thomas, and at times with Dame Beckley herself, was a constant attendant at the Pool with simples and wonderful decoctions of camomile, agrimony, balm, and bitter cress, all of which the dame declared were certain to subdue the fever in Sir Marks brain; but somehow they did not, and he lingered on at the Pool-house, listening to the nightingales, gathering wild-flowers, refusing to see a leech, and declaring that he only wanted time.
He was not confined to his bed, but lounged on couch and easy chair, or walked slowly in the garden, languid and pale, with his arm supported in a sling, receiving with a patient smile the sympathising glances of Mistress Anne, who fawned upon him and tenderly watched his every change.
But he could not leave the Pool-house, and shook his head sadly when, urged by his daughter, Sir Thomas protested that the invalid ought to be brought back to the Moat.
Dame Beckleys preparations did not seem to do the good she anticipated; still they did some, for, being composed of so much water and vegetable juices, they must have had beneficial effects upon the roses and other plants around his bedroom window plants which the young courtier duly moistened from the vessel sent to him. Otherwise fared the wine, for of that he partook liberally, as well as of Jeremiah Cobbes strong drinks.
It must have been from dissatisfaction with her mothers treatment of the patient that one day, after a visit to the Pool-house, in whose quiet cool parlour she had found Sir Mark lying back in an easy chair with a snowy pillow beneath his head, and with Mace seated near reading to him at his wish from a little book of ballads written by one Sir Thomas Wyatt, Mistress Anne, instead of going straight back home, sent the serving-man, who was her guardian, to spend an hour with the men at the mill, and herself turned down a narrow winding track almost overgrown with bearbind, briony, and grass.