How the Game went against Master Cobbe.
A very different scene was enacting at the Pool-house on that very evening. Sir Mark had spent the day mostly out of doors, and had sought out the founder, who, finding that he made no further allusions to his child, but turned the conversation to the works, readily showed him the busy tasks in progress, where, about a mile from the house, men were digging ironstone from out of a pit. Then on the way back he pointed with pride to the deep hole in the face of a precipitous mass of stone, where the shell had torn for itself a place in which to explode, and then rent out the rock in splintered fragments, which lay about side by side with the pieces of iron of which the shell was composed.
“Does that hole go in far?” said Sir Mark, eyeing it curiously.
“Goodness knows,” was the reply. “Deep enough. That shot would destroy part of an enemy’s stronghold, or drive in the side of a ship. But come, and you shall see them get ready a furnace for my next gun.”
Sir Mark followed, and watched the process as layers of ironstone were alternated with charcoal from a mighty heap that lay hard by.
A visit to one of the powder-sheds came next, after Sir Mark had left outside his sword, dagger, and spurs.
“Are you not too particular?” he said, rather disdainfully.
“Not a bit,” was the bluff reply. “Would’st have his Majesty’s Ambassador blown into fragments, like one of my shells? I am none too particular,” he said, as he saw his companion shudder. “I have had so many accidents here that you must allow me to know what is best.”
After this Sir Mark seemed disposed to shirk the visit, but he made an effort, and walked through the place more manfully, looking with curious eyes at the dull black grains, or masses of composition in an unfinished state.
“How would his Majesty like a run through here?” said the founder, with a chuckle. “Powder will always have an ill savour in his nostrils.”
It was with no little sense of relief that Sir Mark found himself outside, close by the shed where the great howitzer had been placed, and at his solicitation the founder readily consented to have the gun out once more, and with boyish eagerness devoted himself to test the powers of the piece and its bursting shells, when loaded after Gil’s own fashion.
At last the founder and his guest had returned, partaken of the evening meal, which Mace dispensed with the calmness of one whose heart was quite at rest; and finally she had retired to find occasion to take Janet to task for being giggling and whispering in the shrubbery with one of Sir Mark’s gaily-dressed men, for by dint of careful drying and smoothing, the traces of the plunge into the mill-race had been made to disappear.
“Now, Master Cobbe,” said Sir Mark, “let us calmly and in friendly spirit talk over our affairs again. Suppose you fill your glass.”
“That I will,” said the founder; “and you do the same.”
“I’ll drink with you and welcome,” said Sir Mark, filling his glass, nodding, and then wetting his lips, while the founder took a hearty draught.
“That’s better,” he said. “And now, sir, what is it to be—a good order for his Majesty’s troops?”
“Yes, and fortune for you Master Cobbe. This order will be but the introduction to many. Why should you not be ordnance-master to his Majesty?”
“Why, indeed, my lad,” said the founder, composedly. “I should gain, of course, but the King would be no loser.”
“Then why not have it so, Master Cobbe. Come, I appeal to you—I plead to you. Are you blind to your daughter’s advantages? I am not a moneyed man, but I offer position and a title.”
“If I sell her to thee,” said the founder, looking through the wine in his glass.
“Tush! Why call things by such hard names? ’tis no sale—I love her dearly, and to help my cause I own that I do try to press upon thee by means of the interest I have at court.”
“What should I make by your order, Sir Mark?” said the founder, musingly.
“How can I tell?” cried Sir Mark, eagerly. “What do I know of the profits? All I know is that I can give you an order for guns and ammunition, to the value of three thousand pounds, to be paid in hard coin. You shall supply as many of those great howitzers and shells as you can, and then take on more men and make others, for from what I have seen of the performance of those guns you have made both name and fortune.”
The founder sat gazing through his wine again, as if musing, and the visitor watched the play of his features with anxiety.
“Harkye, Master Cobbe,” he whispered, “I offer marriage and a place at court for your child. Of course I know that there has been some love-talk between her and this Carr, as they call him, but he has sailed away, and what could be a better opportunity for my suit?”
“But, suppose she loves this Gilbert Carr, Sir Mark?”
“Tush, man; a girl’s fancy! She will forget him in a week. The sight of a wedding-dress would drive him out of her head. You but give me access to her and your aid, and, trust me, she will be a willing bride. There, it is settled, is it not?”
“Sir Mark Leslie,” said the founder, sitting back in his chair; “if you could offer me ten times three thousand pounds in orders I would say the same. Sir, I am a bluff south-country yeoman, and I would sooner become the meanest beggar that crawls than sell my poor child as I would chaffer away a gun. There, I’ll listen to no more. Stay, if you please; you are just as welcome. But I’ll hear no more from you or any man upon this point.”
He gazed frankly into his guest’s eye as Sir Mark’s brow knit, and the young man strove hard to keep down the annoyance he felt at the rejection of his suit by this, in his eyes, common man.
For some minutes neither spoke, and then Sir Mark began in a low husky voice.
“Master Cobbe, I have come to you offering you friendship, and you reject it. I cannot be your enemy for your child’s sake; but you compel me to bring force to bear.”
“Force, sir, what force?” cried the founder angrily. “Do you mean you’ll carry her away? ’fore Heaven I warn you that the lives of you and your servants would not be worth a snap of the fingers did you try such a thing. There are more men here in this neighbourhood than you think for, ready and willing to fight for her at word of mine.”
“No, Master Cobbe; the force I bring to bear is of another sort. Mind, you bring me to this by your obstinate rejection of my suit. I now tell you that Mace must and shall be my wife, and that you will give her to me.”
“Indeed!”
“Yes,” said Sir Mark, “and soon. Listen: I hold the power here to seize upon this place in his Majesty’s name; to arrest you for high treason as the man who supplied his Majesty’s enemies, and as one who is now in league with papist emissaries. Stop, sir, hear me out. You are leagued with one Father Brisdone, a notorious follower of Spain; with a rough adventurer named Carr, who is more pirate than trader. In fact, you and yours are attainted, and at a word from me ruin falls upon you all.”
“And you will do all this with two men whom the very boys who work for me would throw into the Pool?”
“I came in peace, with two men only, Master Cobbe; but a messenger would fetch twenty, fifty, or a hundred good swordsmen and harquebusiers to my side to seize your person, raze the works to the ground, and then—yes, then, Master Cobbe, your daughter would become an easy prize.”
“What you say is all false!” cried the founder, who sat aghast as he felt what a web the man before him had contrived to spread around.
“False or true, I am no judge, Master Cobbe. I am here to execute the King’s commands. The case is left in my hands to act as I see fit. If you prove a good subject of his Majesty, and supply him with the ordnance, well. If you refuse, you stamp yourself a rebel, and as one guilty of high treason.”
“But I do not refuse, Sir Mark; I offer to supply his Majesty.”
“You refuse the proposal of his servant.”
“Did his Majesty bid thee truck and bargain with me, making my child the price at which I should obtain this order?” said the founder, curtly.
“His Majesty bade me do what seemed the best,” said Sir Mark; “so what is it to be, Master Cobbe—Peace or war?”
“War,” cried the founder, angrily; and he brought his fist down heavily on the table.
“As you will, Master Cobbe; but I warn you of your folly. You lose heavily in wealth and liberty, and you deprive your child of her natural protector, leaving her almost entirely at my mercy.”
“No,” cried the founder, “not so. If by your lies and trickery I am snatched from her, there are two men who would take upon themselves the part of guardian. Father Brisdone would—”
“Be in prison or a fugitive,” said Sir Mark, quietly.
“Then Master Peasegood would—”
“Be suspended from his office for evil dealing, and allowing himself to be won over to the Papist cause.”
“Then I’d trust Gil Carr, and bid him wed my child.”
“Gilbert, otherwise Culverin, Carr’s ship, when it returned, would by my orders be watched and seized, as a suspected vessel, and its captain and crew imprisoned to await their trial.”
“Then Sir Thomas Beckley, justice and just man, with all his faults, would protect my daughter.”
“Sir Thomas Beckley might be called upon to seize the person of Mistress Mace Cobbe, for divers malpractices, held in common with a woman here known as Mother Goodhugh, a notorious witch. His Majesty has determined to put down and root out of his kingdom all those vile traffickers with the works of darkness, and has placed great power in the hands of the magistrates of this realm.”
“What!” cried the founder, half in anger, half-laughing. “My child a witch!”
“I say not so, Master Cobbe; I only speak of the common report. Both thy daughter and her maid have been regular visitors to this notorious woman, and by this they have exposed themselves to great risk; for to be attainted now of witchcraft, even of holding communion with the powers of darkness, may mean the stake.”
“Curse thy quibbling, glib, plot-weaving ways?” cried the founder. “Failing those I have named there is not a man, woman, or boy in Roehurst who would not raise a hand for the white moth.”
“Yes,” said Sir Mark, quickly; “that is it. Even that tells against her. She is known commonly as the White Moth of Roehurst; and there are those who whisper that she is a witch.”
“Sir Mark Leslie!” cried the founder, who was white with anger, “I will not quarrel with thee again. I forgot myself once towards my guest; I hope to control myself now, but you try me sore.”
“It grieves me, Master Cobbe, and, though I speak this, it is not as an enemy but as a friend. I merely place my position before you, and say is it not better to avoid all this trouble, when instead the way is open to wealth and honour, and a peaceful old age?”
“Who and what are you?” cried the founder, passionately; “and why do you come to disturb my peaceful home?”
“I am his Majesty’s servant, Master Cobbe. I came here at his command to investigate certain malpractices alleged against thee. I found them to be true, but I found here also a greater king than his Majesty James the First. I found here that all-powerful monarch—Love, and, vanquished by him, I suffered thy sword; I made reports that softened thy case; I returned from my mission with so goodly an account that the King gave me leave to offer thee honour and wealth if, in place of being of doubtful allegiance, thou becomest his faithful liege subject, and work for him as you have been accused of working for others. There, Master Cobbe, it is late, and thou art angry. Think over it all; sleep on it; take time to consider. I am one who can wait; for, believe me, I would rather see thee honoured than know that a lingering imprisonment was sapping thy vital forces and bringing thee low. Good night, Master Cobbe, good night.”
Sir Mark held out his hand, but it was not noticed; the founder sitting back in his stiff old-fashioned chair, and going over the words of his guest, who, with a peculiar smile, glanced at him mockingly, and slowly ascended to his chamber, leaving his host to sit thinking hour after hour, and at last to stumble off heavily to bed with the feeling upon him that he had been playing at some game with heavy stakes, and that the luck had been all upon the other side.