Sweet Mace: A Sussex Legend of the Iron Times. Fenn George Manville
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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 father’s 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 Elizabeth’s adventurous spirits, who fought the Spaniards under the English flag, half raised himself and cried —
“Brave lads – God’s will – this is your captain now!”
And then, as he flung himself wildly upon his father’s 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 Kilby’s 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 Raleigh’s 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 founder’s needs; sulphur from Sicily or Iceland; Chinese salt, as they called it – saltpetre – from the east.
And now after all these years, when the captain’s 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.
“No,” he said at last, “I will not. My life has been, rough, but I cannot blame myself for that; and I will not. I cannot give her up. Mace, my darling, if I knew that by never seeing you again I should add to your happiness, I would bear the suffering like a man. As it is, Master Cobbe, I must go against your will.”
He strode hastily away, with the wild creatures of the woods scattering right and left at his heavy tread, and, making straight for the gabled house, he began for the first time now to think upon its occupant.
Once or twice a pang shot through his breast as he thought of the gaily-dressed young officer made a welcome guest at the house whose door he was forbidden to enter; and he stopped short, with his teeth gritting together, and his brow knit, his mind agitated by the thoughts of what might be.
It was very still, and the soft balmy summer night-air bore the sounds from far away, as with a faint, piercing, shrill cry the bats wheeled around the tree beneath whose dark shadow he stood; the night-hawk chased the moths in busy circle, and a great white-breasted owl floated softly by, turned and flew beneath the tree, but on seeing Gil uttered a wild and thrilling shriek as it fled away, a sound in keeping with the words of Gil Carr, as he walked hastily on once more, exclaiming —
“I should slay him if he did.”
The object of his thoughts was Sir Mark Leslie, then lying on a couch by the open window of his room, with the sweet scents of the garden floating in, and the soft, moist, warm night-air playing pleasantly upon his forehead.
He, too, had his thoughts fixed upon Mace, and, perhaps by a subtle influence, they were drawn, too, towards him whom he had seen as her companion in the boat, the man who had played surgeon, and in whose eyes he had seemed to read no friendly feeling towards himself.
It must have been ten o’clock when Gil came in sight of the gables standing up against the soft, clear summer sky. The occupants of the neighbouring cottages were asleep, and with the exception of the beetle’s drone, and the baying of some bugle-mouthed beagle, all was so silent that the ripple and rush of the water in the stone channel seemed to rise and fall with almost painful force.
There was a broad sloping bank some thirty or forty yards from the front of the house, and, taking off his hat, Gil softly walked along by it for a little distance, stooping here and there to thrust his hand in among the long dew-wet grass, and place something in his hat.
So occupied was he with his proceedings that he did not notice a figure seated beneath a tree nor heed the faint odour of tobacco which was nearly overpowered in the soft, sweet woodland scents that floated by. Neither did he notice that a window was open in one of the gables, and that the founder was seated there, gazing out upon the summer sky.
For, lover-like, Gil Carr was just then very blind, perhaps because the thoughts of Mace Cobbe filled his breast to the exclusion of everything else. Turning then to his task, he walked back to the sloping bank, and softly placed the four glow-worms he had brought diamond-wise upon the grass, where the little creatures glimmered in the darkness like the signal-lights of a ship at sea.
So thought Gil Carr, as he turned to look at them from a little distance, and then, softly walking to the little swing-bridge, he crossed it lightly in the darkness, and, leaping the fence, stood amongst the clustering roses waiting for the opening of a window ten feet above his head.
He had not long to wait, for the signal had been seen, and before many moments had elapsed there was a slight grating noise and then a soft voice that made the young man’s heart throb uttered the one word – “Gil.”
“Yes, dear, I am here,” he replied, eagerly.
“How foolish!” came next from overhead. “Why, Gil, you were with me this afternoon, and yet you play the love-sick swain beneath my window now.”
“I am sick with love, sweet; even unto death.”
“Are you turning poet, Gil?”
“Yes, for I seem to live in a sphere of poesy when I think of thee.”
“You foolish boy.”
“I am,” he said. “Would I could see thine eyes.”
“And that they were glow-worms,” she said laughingly. “There, good-night, dear Gil. It is late, and I must to bed. If you are my true love, come boldly to the house by day; such meetings as this become neither thee nor me.”
“Stay awhile, sweet,” he said. “What of your guest?”
“Poor fellow! I have not seen him since.”
Gil sighed content.
“There, I must fain go now, dear Gil. Good-night.”
“Nay, nay! a moment longer,” he cried.
“Why, Gil,” she cried, laughing musically, “one would think you were a lover forsaken and forlorn, condemned to stay away – forbidden the house.”
“I am.”
“What?”
“I am, sweet; and condemned to stolen meetings.”
“Why, Gil?” she exclaimed; and in a low voice he told her all.
Meanwhile as Gil’s dark figure was seen approaching the house, the watcher at the open window drew back to ensure being unseen, and then proceeded to follow the young man’s movements, ending by going to the far end of the room, taking down a curious old Spanish matchlock from a couple of slings, and then opening an oaken cabinet, from which he took powder in a carved horn flask, and a small pouch of bullets, with