Conclusion
Little more than three weeks later, on Sunday, August 9, 1573, about noon, the congregation in St. Andrew's church at Plymouth was startled into wakefulness by the booming of guns. The vicar was in the midst of his sermon, and the good people were torn between their desire not to offend the worthy parson and their longing to see what was happening at the harbour. A few minutes passed; then a whisper began to run through the church: "Master Drake is home again!" One looked at another; anxious eyes were cast at the high pews where the gentry sat; then, careless what squire or parson might think, by ones and twos and threes the people stole from the church, and, when once outside, set off running with all their might to the harbour. And before they got there a merry peal of bells rang out behind them. The ringers in the belfry, knowing, we must suppose, that their vicar was an easy man, a patriot, and a Devonian to boot, were handling the ropes most lustily.
The two little frigates had just dropped anchor, and the men were putting off in boats. On shore men shouted, women wept and waved handkerchiefs, boys yelled and dodged among their elders; but nobody minded hustling and knocks, for was not Master Drake home again? Deafening cheers rent the air as he landed; hundreds thronged around him to clasp his hand.
"Good-now, dear friends," he said with a laugh as he passed through: "ye'll do me more hurt than the Spaniards ever did."
"Huzzay! huzzay! Spaniards be jowned! What have 'ee got in thikky ships, Master Drake?"
"Where be Bobby Pike?" cried a buxom dame with half a dozen children clinging to her skirts.
"Here I be, Mally," cried the seaman, catching her in his arms, "and i'fecks, I'll be sober for ever more, my lass."
"On my soul and body there be Ned Whiddon, and Tom Copstone, and Hugh Curder, and Billy Hawk!" cried several voices in the crowd. "Huzzay! huzzay! we never thought to see 'ee more."
"And Haymoss Turnpenny! Od's my life, what a day for Margery Tutt!"
And when Dennis, with Mirandola on his shoulder, returning glance for glance with interest, got clear of the press, he saw Amos marching along with a girl on each arm, his ruddy face beaming like the rising sun.
"Why, Amos," said Dennis, "are there two Margerys?"
"My heart, I know a score!" cried Amos. "But this be Margery Tutt, sir, thikky wench on my left. Loose my arm, lass, and drop a curtsey to Master Hazelrig, for 'ithout him I'd never have been here this day. She've waited for me, sir, bided single for my sake, and there's no landlubber to whop after all. T'other wench be Tom Copstone's Joan; his mother's most terrible jealous, and she've got a hold of Tom now; so 'You and me, Haymoss!' he sings out, and I've got his Joan under convoy till the old 'ooman 's done a-kissing of him. Margery, lass, if 'ee be willing, I'll go up along and see pa'son this very day and ax en to call us next Sunday, for I've gold and silver and pearls, lass, and won't they become your little plum neck! Master Hazelrig, I do pity 'ee, I do so. Bean't there a lass to welcome 'ee? Good-now, bear up, for 'ee be but a stripling yet."
And then he was borne away by the crowd, and Dennis saw him no more that day.
Dennis found himself, when the treasure was divided, the possessor of £2,000 in money in addition to the pearls he had got at Fort Aguila. He devoted a goodly sum to the erection of a monument in his parish church to the memory of Sir Martin Blunt and the other adventurers who had sailed in the Maid Marian eighteen months before. A smaller amount sufficed for a stone over the grave of Mirandola, who died in the following winter. The greater part of the money Dennis gave into the hands of John Holles, his steward, who received it with all due gravity, expressing the hope that his young master had had his fill of adventuring and would now remain at home.
For a time Dennis was content to live in his rambling old house at Shaston. But four years later, learning that Drake was fitting out five ships for a voyage round the world, he asked to be allowed to join the expedition at his own charge. His offer was accepted, and he shared in the joys and sorrows, the failures and successes, of that three years' voyage. With closer intercourse he admired the great Captain more and more; and Drake on his part came to regard him with peculiar affection. During the five years spent on shore after his return, Sir Francis, as he now was, paid many visits to the house at Shaston, and often played bowls with Dennis on the lawn behind.
In 1585, when Drake went out to the West Indies with a direct commission from the Queen, Dennis was of his company. He was one of the first to enter the town of St. Domingo when it was assaulted; and in the subsequent attack on Cartagena he was seriously wounded. To his great disappointment, he had not fully recovered in time to take part in the famous expedition to Cadiz, when Drake "singed the King of Spain's beard." But next year, when all England was stirred at the news that the long-expected Armada was at last approaching, Dennis joined Drake on the Revenge, and had his part in the work of fighting in the Channel and the North Sea.
At the conclusion of this year Dennis, now in his thirty-fourth year, married the daughter of a neighbouring squire. Her name happened to be Margery. Soon after the marriage Dennis took her to Plymouth on a visit to his old comrade Amos Turnpenny, who was now blest with a family of five boys and five girls.
"Do 'ee mind, sir," said Amos with a twinkling eye—"do 'ee mind the day when we landed, and you axed me whether there were two Margerys? Seems as if there be, sir; ay, and more; your madam be one, and my 'ooman be two, and my darter yonder be three, and Tom Copstone's darter be four, and I shouldn't be mazed if there was five some day. 'A good name,' says the Book, 'is rayther to be chosen than great riches.' Margery be a good name, to be sure—a better name than Mirandola, poor fond beast! Next to Margery comes Anne Gallant, and that be my second darter yonder."
Dennis Hazelrig became a man of weight in his county. His wife and little daughter—the fifth Margery—dissuaded him from joining Drake and Hawkins in their fatal expedition to the Main in 1594, and he found an outlet for his energies in organizing the yeomanry of Devon.
When James the First came to the throne Dennis received the honour of knighthood. None of his old friends was more delighted than Amos Turnpenny, who was by this time nearly eighty, and a hale old grandfather.
"Ay, I says to Tom Copstone when I heard the news, 'Tom,' says I, 'we've a king again now, my lad, though by all I hear tell he bean't so proper a man as King Hal. But he do have his good points too. What be fust thing 'ee done, think 'ee?' 'Be jowned if I know,' says Tom. (He do have common ways o' speech, poor soul!) 'Why, 'fecks,' says I, 'he bin and made Master Hazelrig a noble knight, and we must call en Sir Dennis to's face for ever more.' 'Well,' says Tom, 'we won't mind that,—night or day,' says he—'you and me, Haymoss?' And be jowned if they were not the very words of my dream!"