by Tom Bevan
Chapter IV.
JOHNNIE MORGAN TAKES A WALK.
At the foot of the hill leading out of Blakeney northwards towardsNewnham stood a many-gabled, substantial farmhouse. A plantation ofoaks backed it, and eastwards the meadows stretched away to the Severn.The house was in the possession of John Morgan, a verderer[1] of theforest, and the good folk of the forest and river were proud to pointto him as a "proper figure of a man." "Johnnie," as he was familiarlystyled by his associates, stood a good two inches over six feet, wasstraight as a fir and tough as a young oak. He had just turned histwentieth year, and was as fleet of foot as the stags that he guarded.Dark-eyed and handsome, light-hearted and jovial, a good singer of agood song, he was as jolly a companion as one might meet on a longsummer's day.
The morning was hot, and the June sun almost at its zenith. The galethat had rocked the tall trees in fury but a few days before was almostforgotten in the windless weather that had succeeded it. Master Morganhad sauntered along one of the broad woodland paths, and was now lyingon his back in a sweet-smelling bed of bracken, gazing up through thetrees to the blue sky beyond. Johnnie was dreaming the happy dreams ofyouth and the summer's noontide. The blue of the heavens haloed histhoughts, and a pair of sweet blue eyes looked out from the midst ofthem. A sigh escaped him. "Plague on 't!" he cried petulantly, "Icannot get verses or rhymes into marching order. My head aches with atumble of conceits and dainty fancies. I could whisper a thousandpretty things to yonder perky robin; I cannot give tongue to one ofthem when Mistress Dorothy turns her eyes upon me; and now that myheart yearns to set them in verse for her reading, I cannot frame aline that doth not limp and stumble. What a thing it is that I cansing the tears into mine eyes with another fellow's verses and cannotbuild a couplet of mine own." Johnnie closed his eyes, puckered hisbrow, and thought hard.
For the better part of an hour Morgan had the cool nook in the woodlandall to himself, and he dreamt of a pair of blue eyes, rhymed them with"skies," joined "love" with "dove," "sweet" with "fleet," "rosy" with"posy," and "heart" with "part," and cudgelled his brains for imagesand conceits that would express in some scant measure the charms ofpretty Mistress Dorothy Dawe. But his lines would not prance andcurvet as he wished them to do; they laboured along in a heavy,cart-horse fashion, so that Johnnie at length reluctantly recalled hiswandering wits to the consideration of the practical things of life.And, immediately upon doing so, he became conscious of the presence ofan intruder upon his privacy. Some one was moving very stealthilythrough the bracken; the young forester detected the quick breathing ofa man and he held his own breath in an instant, whilst his bodyremained as rigid as though it had been a fallen log of oak. He casthis eye down the line of buttons on the front of his doublet andcarefully scanned his belt. It held no weapon save a hunting-knife.His hearing became doubly acute at a sign of danger, and he fixed thespot from which each faint rustle proceeded. Meanwhile his brain wasbusy. Who should be stealing along within a few yards of the pathway?No game was afoot in the immediate neighbourhood, and no forester wouldbe worming himself along in such a fashion. An honest man would walkupright. "This fellow is a rogue," commented Morgan. The brackenfronds curled high above him, and he knew that he was securely hidden.The rustling sounds circled round rather than approached him, and theyfinally ceased at a spot on the edge of the pathway about twenty yardsbelow where Morgan lay listening.
The forester remained very still; the other made no sign. Morgan cameto the conclusion that his presence was unsuspected, so he lay in waitto see what was afoot. Time flew on; to one, at least, the silencebecame irksome.
Sounds at last! Some one was coming down the pathway humming a song.The spy--for such he was--stirred. Morgan noiselessly raised himselfon his elbow. The singer came on; his voice was rich and musical, andthe young fellow's ears tingled with pleasure. He ventured to peepabove the bracken. A dark form was half visible in front of him, andthe face was turned towards the direction whence the song was coming.The head disappeared; Morgan ducked also. He could give no guess as tothe identity of the man who lay before him. But his mind was made upas to the spy's intentions. Villainy was plainly foreshadowed. Hedrew his knife from his belt. The footfalls of the traveller were nowaudible. He came abreast of the lurking foe; he passed him. There wasa sudden leap; then another. A steel blade flashed in the sunlight.The song ceased and the singer turned. Another second and the daggerwould have been in his breast. But at the fateful moment of time thestroke was arrested by Morgan's hand. The would-be assassin turnedwith the hiss and wriggle of a viper; his strength was astonishing,and, ere Morgan was aware, the sharp stab entered his own arm. Heloosened his grip with an exclamation of pain. The spy darted like ablack shadow into the trees--and was gone.
After an instant of hesitation Morgan and the stranger dashed afterhim. They ran hither and thither, but found nothing. On the pathwaythey met again, and, for the first time, spoke. He whose life had beenattempted took Morgan's wounded arm in his hands. "I owe thee, if nota life, at least a whole skin," he said. "I am deeply thy debtor."
"Sir Walter Raleigh can owe nothing to a forest man," exclaimed Morgan.
"Ah! thou knowest me. What is thy name?"
"John Morgan, heart and soul at your service!"
"I have heard of thee from my kinsman, and the reports were of anexcellent quality. Come, let me see to thy hurt. We can gossipafterwards."
Soldiers and huntsmen are usually adepts at rough and ready surgery;the flow of blood from Morgan's wound was stanched and the injured limbbound up. Sir Walter inquired how he had so providentially got uponthe track of the spy, and Johnnie poured out the story of his poeticdifficulties. The knight laughed heartily, and offered his help.
"I am a bit of a rhymster, as thou knowest," he said. "What is thename of the bonny maiden whose eyes have driven thee to verse-making?"
"Mistress Dorothy Dawe," replied the forester a little sheepishly--"asweet wench, Sir Walter, as e'er the sun shone upon. And I thought hername as pretty as her face, but, plague on't, I cannot fix a rhyme to't."
"And there I sympathize with thee most heartily, Master Morgan. When Iwas of thine age and went a-sweethearting, my own fancy lighted upon adainty damosel yclept Dorothy, and, like thee, I found the name mostunreasonable in the matter of rhyme and rhythm. Cut it down to'Dolly,' and that most unkind rhyme 'folly' straightway dings in one'sears."
"How didst thou surmount the difficulty?"
"How? By keeping the name well in the middle of my line. But thereare a hundred pretty appellations that befit a maiden. Thou canst callher thy 'sun,' thy 'moon,' thy 'star,' thy 'light, 'life,' 'goddess,'and so on through a very bookful of terms. Shall I make thee a verseas we jog along?"
"A thousand thanks! but no. I will stand on mine own footing, or standnot at all. I will win the wench by mine own parts or merits, or elsewish her joy with a better man. She shall love me decked in mine ownplain russet, not in velvet and laces borrowed from another's wardrobe."
"Valiantly spoken, Master Morgan. I like thy spirit, and, beshrew me,'twill serve thee better with a sensible maiden than any amount ofpretty speeches and cooing verses. 'Tis a poor man that hath not faithin himself. In wooing, as in fighting, 'tis the brave heart and thehonest soul that gain the clay; and the quick, strong arm serves theworld better than the glib tongue. But let us get to this businessthat brought us together this morning. Thou dost not know myassailant?"
"Not from Adam. Hath your worship no knowledge of him?"
"No certain knowledge, Master Morgan; but I can give a shrewd guess ortwo concerning him. Thou hast heard of the plot of King Philip todestroy the forest?"
"Ay, the rumour was abroad strong enough in the springtime, but sinceAdmiral Drake came down I have heard nothing. I thought the rascalplotters had fled, for 'tis well known the health of a Spaniard suffersgrievously if he do but breathe the same air as our gallant sailor."
"That is so; but some ar
e of tougher constitutions than others, andthey do not sicken in a day. The fellow who hath left his mark uponthee is an emissary of Spain. I did not know my life was threatened,but the admiral may find a foe in any thicket. I am heartily sorry thevillain escaped us."
"I am downright ashamed on 't!" cried Johnnie. He drew himself up tohis full height and stretched out a brawny arm. "I ought to havecrushed him 'twixt finger and thumb as I would a wasp. A lean,shrivelled, hole-and-corner coward!"
"But as strong and supple as a wild cat," commented Raleigh.
"Ay, and he left the mark of his claws behind him," added Morgan. "Hewas no weakling."
"And he is not the only one lying in wait; nor is he the master hand inthis business. You verderers must bestir yourselves, or that which isentrusted to you will go up to the heavens in smoke. I will wend withthee to Newnham. The admiral goes thither on the tide this afternoonon the Queen's business, and 'twill be as well that he, and those thatcome to meet him, should see evidence of the activity of our secretfoes."
So the knight and Master Morgan mended their pace along the woodlandway.
[1] A warden of the forest and an administrator of "forest law."
