Sea-Dogs All! Part 19

The young man started as though an arrow had struck him. His face flushed hotly, and a gleam of pleasure lighted up its gloom.

"Good morrow, Mistress Dorothy," he said. "I suppose thy father waits at the house? I will go to him at once."

He turned from the stile; but on his arm there was the flutter of a hand like to the flutter of a bird's wing, and he stopped. He turned to look at the river again, and the maiden's eyes followed his. There was silence whilst a man might have told ten score.

"The wings of the gulls flash like silver in the suns.h.i.+ne," ventured Dorothy.

"So I have thought."

A pause.

"Thou art leaving us to-morrow."

"That is why I have been watching the gulls for near an hour."

"I don't understand."

"Paignton Rob says that these white gulls are found all the world over.

I shall see them a thousand leagues away--screaming round the s.h.i.+p; ma.s.sing in white armies on the New World cliffs; fis.h.i.+ng in the rivers.

My last vision of home must have white gulls in it. Away yonder they will be fairy birds to me, calling up pictures of my ancestral homestead along Severn side. The forests there will not recall the forest here. How shall their stifling heat and towering palms, their gaudy birds and flowers, their roaring beasts and loathly reptiles, remind one of the cool, sweet glades, the scented bracken, the gnarled oaks, the leaping deer, and sweet-throated songsters of home? 'Tis the vision of the river, the tide, and the wheeling gulls that I shall see again in the land of 'El Dorado.'"

There was a sadness and pathos in the forester's voice that went straight to the heart of the forest maiden. The hand was on his arm again, fluttering, trembling. "I have been very wicked!" The fluty notes of a sweet voice were broken.

"Who says so?" demanded Johnnie harshly and loudly.

"I do; you do."

"I do not!"

"But I have hurt you."

"Why shouldn't you do so, if it pleases you? Women must aye be meddling with pins and barbs. If they be not p.r.i.c.king velvets or home-spun, they must be thrusting sharp points into those that love them best. Why shouldst thou differ from others of thy s.e.x?"

The young man's voice was bitter; the barbs still rankled. They had been long in the wounds they had made, and there was fiery inflammation. How often had he told the maid that she was like none other of her s.e.x; that she was peerless--stood alone! The memory of former pa.s.sionate declarations flashed across the minds of them both, and both sighed down into silence.

"Wilt thou not forgive me?"

"Why didst thou flout me, Dolly?"

"Just a maid's foolish temper. Think how full of whimsies we women be.

Men be not so; they have strength denied to us, the weaker vessel."

(Johnnie's face was visibly softening. Dolly sighed with renewed hope, and went on.) "I was hurt because thou didst plan and resolve to go to the Indies without ever a word to me. I was not thought on. The Queen moves a finger, and straightway thou art fas.h.i.+oning wings to take thee to the ends of the earth. 'Twas thy duty so to do, but why treat me as a chit or child of no account? Thy head was ever bobbing against that of Master Jeffreys, or pouring plans into the one ear of Paignton Rob.

'Mum' was the word if ye did but catch the rustle of my gown. Thou hadst vowed to share thy life with me; yet there did ye sit, like conspirators, planning momentous issues in life, with never a chance for me to utter 'Yea' or 'Nay.' Was that just?"

"I told thee of my resolve as soon as I had made it firm."

"That was a day too late for my pride. The Dawes have some pride, Jack Morgan."

"They have reason for it, Mistress Dawe."

"Their friends should respect it."

"I was hoping to increase it. Why, thinkest thou, did I resolve to risk life and limb in the Indies, unless to gather wealth, that I might lay it at thy feet?"

"Nay; thou wert bitten by the flea of adventure, and must needs rush about the world to deaden the itching. Suppose that I had rather have thee remain at home, being but a plain maid, who would find contentment as a farmer's wife?"

The idea had not occurred to Johnnie, and he gasped in astonishment.

Dolly saw his confusion, and wisely did not press her point. On the contrary, woman-like, she dropped the whole thread of the argument, and simply exclaimed a little plaintively,--

"I am sore wearied!"

"Wearied!" cried Johnnie, facing round. "Wearied of what?"

"I have walked from Newnham, and 'tis a trying journey with the wind buffeting one so rudely."

"I thought thou hadst ridden with thy father."

"I walked alone; I wanted to see thee alone. Why should we part ill friends, that have loved one another?"

The next moment a tearful maid was in a strong man's arms. All the wrongs on both sides, real and imaginary, were forgiven and forgotten.

Two happy, laughing lovers sat and watched the gulls wheeling, dipping, rising in the spring suns.h.i.+ne.

"Thou hast rare roses in thy cheeks, sweetheart," said Johnnie.

"'Tis the wind," replied Dolly.

"'March wind!'" murmured the youth.

"'April showers!'" sobbed the maiden; for she thought of the morrow, and the tears came into the brave blue eyes.

Chapter XXVII.

IN PLYMOUTH.

The arrow sang its curving flight through the air and stuck, with a quick quiver, in the very centre of the target. "Four times out of six have I found his heart, and a pennypiece would cover the four,"

exclaimed Nick Johnson. "'Twill do!" He put his bow-point to his toe, loosened the string, and laid the weapon aside. Brother Ned slipped his own bow from his shoulder, strung it, tested its tautness and rigidity, and took six arrows from the boy who waited upon the patrons of archery ground. He shot; the arrow went wide. He sighed, rubbed his eyes as though to clear them from mist, and shot again. The shaft lodged on the outer edge of the target, almost splintering the wood.

"Better," said Nick encouragingly. Ned shot a third time; the string tw.a.n.ged unevenly, and the arrow fell short. With a groan of despair the sailor threw the bow aside, and called to the boy to fetch the arrows. "'Tis no use," he cried; "I shall ne'er master the trick on't again; left hand and eye will not go together as did right hand and eye in the old days. Time was when I could outshoot thee three matches in four; now should I miss the side of a house at a hundred paces. Thy left arm serves thee better than thy right ever did. I know no better marksman."

Nick pulled musingly at his sandy beard. "In truth," he admitted, "it seemeth as though nature intended me for a left-handed man; 'tis wonderful what skill I have acquired with it in a few months of practice. Wilt thou not try again?"

"Not to-day. I'll to the witch-woman under the cliffs, and get her to say some charms that have power over the left side of a man." Ned strode moodily off, and Nick followed him. At the stile that led into the highway they met Dan Pengelly coming in search of them. Yards away his excited countenance heralded news. "They've turned up at last!"

he cried.

"Master Morgan and Rob?"