Simple Simon
Cattiwow came down the steep lane with his five-horse timber-tug. Hestopped by the wood-lump at the back gate to take off the brakes. Hisreal name was Brabon, but the first time the children met him, years andyears ago, he told them he was 'carting wood,' and it sounded so exactlylike 'cattiwow' that they never called him anything else.
'HI!' Una shouted from the top of the wood-lump, where they had beenwatching the lane. 'What are you doing? Why weren't we told?'
'They've just sent for me,' Cattiwow answered. 'There's a middlin' biglog stacked in the dirt at Rabbit Shaw, and'--he flicked his whip backalong the line--'so they've sent for us all.'
Dan and Una threw themselves off the wood-lump almost under blackSailor's nose. Cattiwow never let them ride the big beam that makesthe body of the timber-tug, but they hung on behind while their teeththuttered.
The Wood road beyond the brook climbs at once into the woods, and yousee all the horses' backs rising, one above another, like moving stairs.Cattiwow strode ahead in his sackcloth woodman's petticoat, belted atthe waist with a leather strap; and when he turned and grinned, his redlips showed under his sackcloth-coloured beard. His cap was sackclothtoo, with a flap behind, to keep twigs and bark out of his neck. Henavigated the tug among pools of heather-water that splashed in theirfaces, and through clumps of young birches that slashed at their legs,and when they hit an old toadstooled stump, they never knew whether itwould give way in showers of rotten wood, or jar them back again.
At the top of Rabbit Shaw half-a-dozen men and a team of horses stoodround a forty-foot oak log in a muddy hollow. The ground about waspoached and stoached with sliding hoofmarks, and a wave of dirt wasdriven up in front of the butt.
'What did you want to bury her for this way?' said Cattiwow. He took hisbroad-axe and went up the log tapping it.
'She's sticked fast,' said 'Bunny' Lewknor, who managed the other team.
Cattiwow unfastened the five wise horses from the tug. They cocked theirears forward, looked, and shook themselves.
'I believe Sailor knows,' Dan whispered to Una.
'He do,' said a man behind them. He was dressed in flour sacks like theothers, and he leaned on his broad-axe, but the children, who knew allthe wood-gangs, knew he was a stranger. In his size and oily hairinesshe might have been Bunny Lewknor's brother, except that his brown eyeswere as soft as a spaniel's, and his rounded black beard, beginningclose up under them, reminded Una of the walrus in 'The Walrus and theCarpenter.'
'Don't he justabout know?' he said shyly, and shifted from one foot tothe other.
'Yes. "What Cattiwow can't get out of the woods must have roots growingto her."' Dan had heard old Hobden say this a few days before.
At that minute Puck pranced up, picking his way through the pools ofblack water in the ling.
'Look out!' cried Una, jumping forward. 'He'll see you, Puck!'
'Me and Mus' Robin are pretty middlin' well acquainted,' the mananswered with a smile that made them forget all about walruses.
'This is Simon Cheyneys,' Puck began, and cleared his throat.'Shipbuilder of Rye Port; burgess of the said town, and the only--'
'Oh, look! Look ye! That's a knowing one,' said the man.
Cattiwow had fastened his team to the thin end of the log, and wasmoving them about with his whip till they stood at right angles to it,heading downhill. Then he grunted. The horses took the strain, beginningwith Sailor next the log, like a tug-of-war team, and dropped almost totheir knees. The log shifted a nail's breadth in the clinging dirt, withthe noise of a giant's kiss.
'You're getting her!' Simon Cheyneys slapped his knee. 'Hing on! Hingon, lads, or she'll master ye! Ah!'
Sailor's left hind hoof had slipped on a heather-tuft. One of the menwhipped off his sack apron and spread it down. They saw Sailor feel forit, and recover. Still the log hung, and the team grunted in despair.
'Hai!' shouted Cattiwow, and brought his dreadful whip twice acrossSailor's loins with the crack of a shot-gun. The horse almost screamedas he pulled that extra last ounce which he did not know was in him.The thin end of the log left the dirt and rasped on dry gravel. The buttground round like a buffalo in his wallow. Quick as an axe-cut, Lewknorsnapped on his five horses, and sliding, trampling, jingling, andsnorting, they had the whole thing out on the heather.
'Dat's the very first time I've knowed you lay into Sailor--to hurthim,' said Lewknor.
'It is,' said Cattiwow, and passed his hand over the two wheals. 'ButI'd ha' laid my own brother open at that pinch. Now we'll twitch herdown the hill a piece--she lies just about right--and get her home bythe low road. My team'll do it, Bunny; you bring the tug along. Mindout!'
He spoke to the horses, who tightened the chains. The great log halfrolled over, and slowly drew itself out of sight downhill, followed bythe wood-gang and the timber-tug. In half a minute there was nothing tosee but the deserted hollow of the torn-up dirt, the birch undergrowthstill shaking, and the water draining back into the hoof-prints.
'Ye heard him?' Simon Cheyneys asked. 'He cherished his horse, but he'dha' laid him open in that pinch.'
'Not for his own advantage,' said Puck quickly. ''Twas only to shift thelog.'
'I reckon every man born of woman has his log to shift in the world--ifso be you're hintin' at any o' Frankie's doings. He never hit beyondreason or without reason,' said Simon.
'I never said a word against Frankie,' Puck retorted, with a wink at thechildren. 'An' if I did, do it lie in your mouth to contest my say-so,seeing how you--'
'Why don't it lie in my mouth, seeing I was the first which knowedFrankie for all he was?' The burly sack-clad man puffed down at coollittle Puck.
'Yes, and the first which set out to poison him--Frankie--on the highseas--'
Simon's angry face changed to a sheepish grin. He waggled his immensehands, but Puck stood off and laughed mercilessly.
'But let me tell you, Mus' Robin,'he pleaded.
'I've heard the tale. Tell the children here. Look, Dan! Look,Una!'---Puck's straight brown finger levelled like an arrow. 'There'sthe only man that ever tried to poison Sir Francis Drake!'
'Oh, Mus' Robin! 'Tidn't fair. You've the 'vantage of us all in yourupbringin's by hundreds o' years. Stands to nature you know all thetales against every one.'
He turned his soft eyes so helplessly on Una that she cried, 'Stopragging him, Puck! You know he didn't really.'
'I do. But why are you so sure, little maid?' 'Because--because hedoesn't look like it,' said Una stoutly.
'I thank you,' said Simon to Una. 'I--I was always trustable-likewith children if you let me alone, you double handful o' mischief.' Hepretended to heave up his axe on Puck; and then his shyness overtook himafresh.
'Where did you know Sir Francis Drake?' said Dan, not liking beingcalled a child.
'At Rye Port, to be sure,' said Simon, and seeing Dan's bewilderment,repeated it.
'Yes, but look here,'said Dan. '"Drake he was a Devon man." The songsays so.'
'"And ruled the Devon seas,"' Una went on. 'That's what I wasthinking--if you don't mind.'
Simon Cheyneys seemed to mind very much indeed, for he swelled insilence while Puck laughed.
'Hutt!' he burst out at last, 'I've heard that talk too. If you listento them West Country folk, you'll listen to a pack o' lies. I believeFrankie was born somewhere out west among the Shires, but his fatherhad to run for it when Frankie was a baby, because the neighbours waswishful to kill him, d'ye see? He run to Chatham, old Parson Drake did,an' Frankie was brought up in a old hulks of a ship moored in the Medwayriver, same as it might ha' been the Rother. Brought up at sea, youmight say, before he could walk on land--nigh Chatham in Kent. And ain'tKent back-door to Sussex? And don't that make Frankie Sussex? O' courseit do. Devon man! Bah! Those West Country boats they're always fishin'in other folks' water.'
'I beg your pardon,' said Dan. 'I'm sorry.
'No call to be sorry. You've been misled. I met Frankie at Rye Port when
my Uncle, that was the shipbuilder there, pushed me off his wharf-edgeon to Frankie's ship. Frankie had put in from Chatham with his ruddersplutted, and a man's arm--Moon's that 'ud be--broken at the tiller."Take this boy aboard an' drown him," says my Uncle, "and I'll mend yourrudder-piece for love."
'What did your Uncle want you drowned for?'said Una.
'That was only his fashion of say-so, same as Mus' Robin. I'd afoolishness in my head that ships could be builded out of iron.Yes--iron ships! I'd made me a liddle toy one of iron plates beat outthin--and she floated a wonder! But my Uncle, bein' a burgess of Rye,and a shipbuilder, he 'prenticed me to Frankie in the fetchin' trade, tocure this foolishness.'
'What was the fetchin' trade?' Dan interrupted.
'Fetchin' poor Flemishers and Dutchmen out o' the Low Countries intoEngland. The King o' Spain, d'ye see, he was burnin' 'em in those parts,for to make 'em Papishers, so Frankie he fetched 'em away to our parts,and a risky trade it was. His master wouldn't never touch it while helived, but he left his ship to Frankie when he died, and Frankie turnedher into this fetchin' trade. Outrageous cruel hard work--on besom-blacknights bulting back and forth off they Dutch roads with shoals onall sides, and having to hark out for the frish-frish-frish-like of aSpanish galliwopses' oars creepin' up on ye. Frankie 'ud have the tillerand Moon he'd peer forth at the bows, our lantern under his skirts, tillthe boat we was lookin' for 'ud blurt up out o' the dark, and we'd layhold and haul aboard whoever 'twas--man, woman, or babe--an' round we'dgo again, the wind bewling like a kite in our riggin's, and they'd dropinto the hold and praise God for happy deliverance till they was allsick.
'I had nigh a year at it, an' we must have fetched off--oh, a hundredpore folk, I reckon. Outrageous bold, too, Frankie growed to be.Outrageous cunnin' he was. Once we was as near as nothin' nipped by atall ship off Tergoes Sands in a snowstorm. She had the wind of us, andspooned straight before it, shootin' all bow guns. Frankie fled inshoresmack for the beach, till he was atop of the first breakers. Then hehove his anchor out, which nigh tore our bows off, but it twitched usround end-for-end into the wind, d'ye see, an' we clawed off them sandslike a drunk man rubbin' along a tavern bench. When we could see, theSpanisher was laid flat along in the breakers with the snows whiteningon his wet belly. He thought he could go where Frankie went.'
'What happened to the crew?' said Una.
'We didn't stop,' Simon answered. 'There was a very liddle new babyin our hold, and the mother she wanted to get to some dry bed middlin'quick. We runned into Dover, and said nothing.'
'Was Sir Francis Drake very much pleased?' 'Heart alive, maid, he'dno head to his name in those days. He was just a outrageous, valiant,crop-haired, tutt-mouthed boy, roarin' up an' down the narrer seas, withhis beard not yet quilted out. He made a laughing-stock of everythingall day, and he'd hold our lives in the bight of his arm all thebesom-black night among they Dutch sands; and we'd ha' jumped oversideto behove him any one time, all of us.'
'Then why did you try to poison him?' Una asked wickedly, and Simon hunghis head like a shy child.
'Oh, that was when he set me to make a pudden, for because our cook washurted. I done my uttermost, but she all fetched adrift like in the bag,an' the more I biled the bits of her, the less she favoured any fashiono' pudden. Moon he chawed and chammed his piece, and Frankie chawed andchammed his'n, and--no words to it--he took me by the ear an' walkedme out over the bow-end, an' him an' Moon hove the pudden at me onthe bowsprit gub by gub, something cruel hard!' Simon rubbed his hairycheek.
'"Nex' time you bring me anything," says Frankie, "you bring mecannon-shot an' I'll know what I'm getting." But as for poisonin'--' Hestopped, the children laughed so.
'Of course you didn't,' said Una. 'Oh, Simon, we do like you!'
'I was always likeable with children.' His smile crinkled up through thehair round his eyes. 'Simple Simon they used to call me through our yardgates.'
'Did Sir Francis mock you?' Dan asked.
'Ah, no. He was gentle-born. Laugh he did--he was always laughing--butnot so as to hurt a feather. An' I loved 'en. I loved 'en before Englandknew 'en, or Queen Bess she broke his heart.'
'But he hadn't really done anything when you knew him, had he?' Unainsisted. 'Armadas and those things, I mean.'
Simon pointed to the scars and scrapes left by Cattiwow's great log.'You tell me that that good ship's timber never done nothing againstwinds and weathers since her up-springing, and I'll confess ye thatyoung Frankie never done nothing neither. Nothing? He adventured andsuffered and made shift on they Dutch sands as much in any one monthas ever he had occasion for to do in a half-year on the high seasafterwards. An' what was his tools? A coaster boat--a liddle box o'walty plankin' an' some few fathom feeble rope held together an' madeable by him sole. He drawed our spirits up In our bodies same as achimney-towel draws a fire. 'Twas in him, and it comed out all timesand shapes.' 'I wonder did he ever 'magine what he was going to be? Tellhimself stories about it?' said Dan with a flush.
'I expect so. We mostly do--even when we're grown. But bein' Frankie, hetook good care to find out beforehand what his fortune might be. Had Irightly ought to tell 'em this piece?' Simon turned to Puck, who nodded.
'My Mother, she was just a fair woman, but my Aunt, her sister, she hadgifts by inheritance laid up in her,' Simon began.
'Oh, that'll never do,' cried Puck, for the children stared blankly. 'Doyou remember what Robin promised to the Widow Whitgift so long as herblood and get lasted?' [See 'Dymchurch Flit' in PUCK OF POOK'S HILL.]'Yes. There was always to be one of them that could see farther througha millstone than most,' Dan answered promptly.
'Well, Simon's Aunt's mother,' said Puck slowly, 'married the Widow'sblind son on the Marsh, and Simon's Aunt was the one chosen to seefarthest through millstones. Do you understand?'
'That was what I was gettin' at,' said Simon, 'but you're so desperatequick. My Aunt she knew what was comin' to people. My Uncle being aburgess of Rye, he counted all such things odious, and my Aunt shecouldn't be got to practise her gifts hardly at all, because it hurtedher head for a week after-wards; but when Frankie heard she had 'em,he was all for nothin' till she foretold on him--till she looked inhis hand to tell his fortune, d'ye see? One time we was at Rye she comeaboard with my other shirt and some apples, and he fair beazled the lifeout of her about it.
'"Oh, you'll be twice wed, and die childless," she says, and pushes hishand away.
'"That's the woman's part," he says. "What'll come to me-to me?" an' hethrusts it back under her nose.
'"Gold--gold, past belief or counting," she says. "Let go o' me, lad."
'"Sink the gold!" he says. "What'll I do, mother?" He coaxed her like nowoman could well withstand. I've seen him with 'em--even when they weresea-sick.
'"If you will have it," she says at last, "you shall have it. You'll do amany things, and eating and drinking with a dead man beyond the world'send will be the least of them. For you'll open a road from the Eastunto the West, and back again, and you'll bury your heart with your bestfriend by that road-side, and the road you open none shall shut so longas you're let lie quiet in your grave."
[The old lady's prophecy is in a fair way to come true, for now thePanama Canal is finished, one end of it opens into the very bay whereSir Francis Drake was buried. So ships are taken through the Canal, andthe road round Cape Horn which Sir Francis opened is very little used.]
'"And if I'm not?" he says.
'"Why, then," she says, "Sim's iron ships will be sailing on dry land.Now ha' done with this foolishness. Where's Sim's shirt?"
'He couldn't fetch no more out of her, and when we come up from thecabin, he stood mazed-like by the tiller, playing with a apple. '"MySorrow!" says my Aunt; "d'ye see that? The great world lying in hishand, liddle and round like a apple."
'"Why, 'tis one you gived him," I says.
'"To be sure," she says. "'Tis just a apple," and she went ashore withher hand to her head. It always hurted her to show her gifts.
/> Him and me puzzled over that talk plenty. It sticked in his mind quiteextravagant. The very next time we slipped out for some fetchin' trade,we met Mus' Stenning's boat over by Calais sands; and he warned us thatthe Spanishers had shut down all their Dutch ports against us English,and their galliwopses was out picking up our boats like flies off hogs'backs. Mus' Stenning he runs for Shoreham, but Frankie held on a piece,knowin' that Mus Stenning was jealous of our good trade. Over by Dunkirka great gor-bellied Spanisher, with the Cross on his sails, came rampin'at us. We left him. We left him all they bare seas to conquest in.
'"Looks like this road was going to be shut pretty soon," says Frankie,humourin' her at the tiller. "I'll have to open that other one your Auntforetold of."
'"The Spanisher's crowdin' down on us middlin' quick," I says. "No odds,"says Frankie, "he'll have the inshore tide against him. Did your Auntsay I was to be quiet in my grave for ever?"
'"Till my iron ships sailed dry land," I says.
'"That's foolishness," he says. "Who cares where Frankie Drake makes ahole in the water now or twenty years from now?"
'The Spanisher kept muckin' on more and more canvas. I told him so.
'"He's feelin' the tide," was all he says. "If he was among TergoesSands with this wind, we'd be picking his bones proper. I'd give myheart to have all their tall ships there some night before a north gale,and me to windward. There'd be gold in My hands then. Did your Aunt sayshe saw the world settin' in my hand, Sim?"
'"Yes, but 'twas a apple," says I, and he laughed like he always didat me. "Do you ever feel minded to jump overside and be done witheverything?" he asks after a while.
'"No. What water comes aboard is too wet as 'tis," I says. "TheSpanisher's going about."
'"I told you," says he, never looking back. "He'll give us the Pope'sBlessing as he swings. Come down off that rail. There's no knowin' wherestray shots may hit." So I came down off the rail, and leaned againstit, and the Spanisher he ruffled round in the wind, and his port-lidsopened all red inside.
'"Now what'll happen to my road if they don't let me lie quiet in mygrave?" he says. "Does your Aunt mean there's two roads to be found andkept open--or what does she mean? I don't like that talk about t'otherroad. D'you believe in your iron ships, Sim?"
'He knowed I did, so I only nodded, and he nodded back again. '"Anybodybut me 'ud call you a fool, Sim," he says. "Lie down. Here comes thePope's Blessing!"
'The Spanisher gave us his broadside as he went about. They all fellshort except one that smack-smooth hit the rail behind my back, an' Ifelt most won'erful cold.
'"Be you hit anywhere to signify?" he says. "Come over to me."
'"O Lord, Mus' Drake," I says, "my legs won't move," and that was thelast I spoke for months.'
'Why? What had happened?' cried Dan and Una together.
'The rail had jarred me in here like.' Simon reached behind himclumsily. 'From my shoulders down I didn't act no shape. Frankie carriedme piggyback to my Aunt's house, and I lay bed-rid and tongue-tied whileshe rubbed me day and night, month in and month out. She had faith inrubbing with the hands. P'raps she put some of her gifts into it, too.Last of all, something loosed itself in my pore back, and lo! I waswhole restored again, but kitten-feeble.
'"Where's Frankie?" I says, thinking I'd been a longish while abed.
'"Down-wind amongst the Dons--months ago," says my Aunt.
'"When can I go after 'en?" I says.
'"Your duty's to your town and trade now," says she. "Your Uncle hedied last Michaelmas and he've left you and me the yard. So no more ironships, mind ye."
'"What?" I says. "And you the only one that beleft in 'em!"
'"Maybe I do still," she says, "but I'm a woman before I'm a Whitgift,and wooden ships is what England needs us to build. I lay on ye to doso."
'That's why I've never teched iron since that day--not to build atoy ship of. I've never even drawed a draft of one for my pleasure ofevenings.' Simon smiled down on them all. 'Whitgift blood is terribleresolute--on the she-side,'said Puck.
'Didn't You ever see Sir Francis Drake again?'Dan asked.
'With one thing and another, and my being made a burgess of Rye, I neverclapped eyes on him for the next twenty years. Oh, I had the news ofhis mighty doings the world over. They was the very same bold, cunningshifts and passes he'd worked with beforetimes off they Dutch sands,but, naturally, folk took more note of them. When Queen Bess made himknight, he sent my Aunt a dried orange stuffed with spiceries to smellto. She cried outrageous on it. She blamed herself for her foretellings,having set him on his won'erful road; but I reckon he'd ha' gone thatway all withstanding. Curious how close she foretelled it! The world inhis hand like an apple, an' he burying his best friend, Mus' Doughty--'
'Never mind for Mus' Doughty,' Puck interrupted. 'Tell us where you metSir Francis next.'
'Oh, ha! That was the year I was made a burgess of Rye--the same yearwhich King Philip sent his ships to take England without Frankie'sleave.'
'The Armada!' said Dan contentedly. 'I was hoping that would come.'
'I knowed Frankie would never let 'em smell London smoke, but plentygood men in Rye was two-three minded about the upshot. 'Twas the noiseof the gun-fire tarrified us. The wind favoured it our way from offbehind the Isle of Wight. It made a mutter like, which growed andgrowed, and by the end of a week women was shruckin' in the streets.Then they come slidderin' past Fairlight in a great smoky pat vambrishedwith red gun-fire, and our ships flyin' forth and duckin' in again. Thesmoke-pat sliddered over to the French shore, so I knowed Frankie wasedgin' the Spanishers toward they Dutch sands where he was master. Isays to my Aunt, "The smoke's thinnin' out. I lay Frankie's just aboutscrapin' his hold for a few last rounds shot. 'Tis time for me to go."
'"Never in them clothes," she says. "Do on the doublet I bought you tobe made burgess in, and don't you shame this day."
'So I mucked it on, and my chain, and my stiffed Dutch breeches and all.
'"I be comin', too," she says from her chamber, and forth she comepavisandin' like a peacock--stuff, ruff, stomacher and all. She was anotable woman.'
'But how did you go? You haven't told us,' said Una.
'In my own ship--but half-share was my Aunt's. In the ANTONY OF RYE, tobe sure; and not empty-handed. I'd been loadin' her for three dayswith the pick of our yard. We was ballasted on cannon-shot of all threesizes; and iron rods and straps for his carpenters; and a nice passel ofclean three-inch oak planking and hide breech-ropes for his cannon, andgubs of good oakum, and bolts o' canvas, and all the sound rope in theyard. What else could I ha' done? I knowed what he'd need most after aweek's such work. I'm a shipbuilder, little maid.
'We'd a fair slant o' wind off Dungeness, and we crept on till it felllight airs and puffed out. The Spanishers was all in a huddle over byCalais, and our ships was strawed about mending 'emselves like dogslickin' bites. Now and then a Spanisher would fire from a low port, andthe ball 'ud troll across the flat swells, but both sides was finishedfightin' for that tide.
'The first ship we foreslowed on, her breastworks was crushed in, an'men was shorin' 'em up. She said nothing. The next was a black pinnace,his pumps clackin' middling quick, and he said nothing. But the third,mending shot-holes, he spoke out plenty. I asked him where Mus' Drakemight be, and a shiny-suited man on the poop looked down into us, andsaw what we carried.
'"Lay alongside you!" he says. "We'll take that all."
'"'Tis for Mus' Drake," I says, keeping away lest his size should leethe wind out of my sails.
'"Hi! Ho! Hither! We're Lord High Admiral of England! Come alongside, orwe'll hang ye," he says.
''Twas none of my affairs who he was if he wasn't Frankie, and while hetalked so hot I slipped behind a green-painted ship with her top-sidessplintered. We was all in the middest of 'em then.
'"Hi! Hoi!" the green ship says. "Come alongside, honest man, and I'llbuy your load. I'm Fenner that fought the seven Portugals--clean out ofshot or bullets. Frankie knows me."
'"Ay, but I don't," I says, and I slacked nothing.
'He was a masterpiece. Seein' I was for goin' on, he hails a Bridporthoy beyond us and shouts, "George! Oh, George! Wing that duck. He'sfat!" An' true as we're all here, that squatty Bridport boat rounds toacrost our bows, intendin' to stop us by means o' shooting.
'My Aunt looks over our rail. "George," she says, "you finish with yourenemies afore you begin on your friends."
'Him that was laying the liddle swivel-gun at us sweeps off his hat an'calls her Queen Bess, and asks if she was selling liquor to pore drysailors. My Aunt answered him quite a piece. She was a notable woman.
'Then he come up--his long pennant trailing overside--his waistclothsand netting tore all to pieces where the Spanishers had grappled, andhis sides black-smeared with their gun-blasts like candle-smoke in abottle. We hooked on to a lower port and hung.
'"Oh, Mus' Drake! Mus' Drake!" I calls up.
'He stood on the great anchor cathead, his shirt open to the middle, andhis face shining like the sun.
'"Why, Sim!" he says. Just like that--after twenty year! "Sim," he says,"what brings you?"
'"Pudden," I says, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
'"You told me to bring cannon-shot next time, an' I've brought 'em."
'He saw we had. He ripped out a fathom and a half o' brimstone Spanish,and he swung down on our rail, and he kissed me before all his fineyoung captains. His men was swarming out of the lower ports ready tounload us. When he saw how I'd considered all his likely wants, hekissed me again.
'"Here's a friend that sticketh closer than a brother!" he says."Mistress," he says to my Aunt, "all you foretold on me was true. I'veopened that road from the East to the West, and I've buried my heartbeside it."
'"I know," she says. "That's why I be come."
'"But ye never foretold this"; he points to both they great fleets.
'"This don't seem to me to make much odds compared to what happens to aman," she says. "Do it?"
'"Certain sure a man forgets to remember when he's proper mucked up withwork. Sim," he says to me, "we must shift every living Spanisher roundDunkirk corner on to our Dutch sands before morning. The wind'll comeout of the North after this calm--same as it used--and then they're ourmeat."
'"Amen," says I. "I've brought you what I could scutchel up of odds andends. Be you hit anywhere to signify?"
'"Oh, our folk'll attend to all that when we've time," he says. He turnsto talk to my Aunt, while his men flew the stuff out of our hold. Ithink I saw old Moon amongst 'em, but he was too busy to more thannod like. Yet the Spanishers was going to prayers with their bells andcandles before we'd cleaned out the ANTONY. Twenty-two ton o' usefulstuff I'd fetched him. '"Now, Sim," says my Aunt, "no more devouring ofMus' Drake's time. He's sending us home in the Bridport hoy. I want tospeak to them young springalds again."
'"But here's our ship all ready and swept," I says.
'"Swep' an' garnished," says Frankie. "I'm going to fill her with devilsin the likeness o' pitch and sulphur. We must shift the Dons roundDunkirk corner, and if shot can't do it, we'll send down fireships."
'"I've given him my share of the ANTONY," says my Aunt. "What do youreckon to do about yours?"
'"She offered it," said Frankie, laughing.
'"She wouldn't have if I'd overheard her," I says; "because I'd haveoffered my share first." Then I told him how the ANTONY's sails was besttrimmed to drive before the wind, and seeing he was full of occupationswe went acrost to that Bridport hoy, and left him.
'But Frankie was gentle-born, d'ye see, and that sort they neveroverlook any folks' dues.
'When the hoy passed under his stern, he stood bare-headed on the poopsame as if my Aunt had been his Queen, and his musicianers played "MaryAmbree" on their silver trumpets quite a long while. Heart alive, littlemaid! I never meaned to make you look sorrowful!
'Bunny Lewknor in his sackcloth petticoats burst through the birch scrubwiping his forehead.
'We've got the stick to rights now! She've been a whole hatful o'trouble. You come an' ride her home, Mus' Dan and Miss Una!'
'They found the proud wood-gang at the foot of the slope, with the logdouble-chained on the tug.
'Cattiwow, what are you going to do with it?'said Dan, as they straddledthe thin part.
'She's going down to Rye to make a keel for a Lowestoft fishin'-boat,I've heard. Hold tight!'
'Cattiwow cracked his whip, and the great log dipped and tilted, andleaned and dipped again, exactly like a stately ship upon the high seas.
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