Moreover, it was no great while since, by order of Her Majesty's Council, that notable Bond of Association had been signed for the better defence of the Queen, my father signing with the rest, as a chief person of these parts and a magistrate.
I am no politician, as I say, but there is small need of knowledge in State affairs to make a man love his home; and when a plot of the magnitude which this of Fr. Throgmorton's had, is brought to light, why, every man is a politician perforce and a soldier too.
For Queen Mary Stuart, who was now more closely guarded, as indeed was meet, and who later was to be led to her death, I say nought of her, for tales be many, and men's minds confused, when it comes to question of a woman sinning, and that the fairest of them all. That she was guilty I suppose no one reasonably doubteth, and obnoxious to peace and good government, but, when all is said, there is the pity of slaying a delicate lady in order to the securing ourselves; and such a deed makes quiet a cowardly thing, and puts a colour of shame on justice herself.
But that business was not come yet by two years and more, and for the present all our thoughts were of gratitude for our deliverance from the subtlety of forsworn plotters, and of courage and loyalty and the will to be feared.
I spurred my mare down the rough lane, and was soon out upon the level shore of the bay, beyond which lies Dunster in a fold of steep moor, and the wooded promontory of Minehead further to the west. The tide was out as I rode at full gallop along the bow of thin turf which bounds the coast; while across the reach of sand the little waves lapped and fretted with a sweet, low sound.
The sun was now risen pretty high, and the fisher-folk were busied here and there with their nets and tackle as I passed them by. It was nigh eight o'clock when I drew rein in Dunster market, before the chief inn there—a clean place, and of good entertainment. My purpose was immediately to break my fast, for I had a fierceness of hunger upon me by reason of the sharp air and the early hour, and afterwards to visit a certain sea captain whom I knew to be lodged there, Mr. Jonas Cutts, of the Three Lanterns, one of Her Majesty's ships, though but a small one; he being a gentleman I had met with upon the occasion of my father's signing the Bond of Defence. What my further purpose was, if indeed 'twere aught but to hear wonders and talk big about the Spaniards, I cannot now charge my remembrance, but to him I was determined to go after breakfast and waste an hour before returning home.
I inquired his lodging out, therefore, over my dish of eggs, but learned to my disappointment that he had left it suddenly, before daybreak, to join his ship at Minehead, where it lay. This intelligence, little though it affected me, save as it robbed my idleness of some plea of purpose, I took ill enough, rating my host like the angry boy I was, and dispraising the closeness of the ward upon our coasts, though I had formerly praised the same, and indeed had meant to enlarge with the captain upon this very theme.
In a very sour humour then I departed from the inn, and while my mare was baiting took a turn about the town.
And so fair did I find all, the high street wide and sweet and the houses thereon neat and well ordered, the great castle, moreover, on a mount at the nether end, very fencible and stately builded, that it was not long ere my spirits rose again, and I thought no more upon Captain Cutts and his departing. Methought the countryside had never seemed so pleasant as now under its web of frost, and the trees a kind of blue of the colour of silver-work tarnished by age, the sky red behind them reaching up from grey. I left the middle part of the town soon and got into the lanes, where at length I came by chance upon an ancient mill, which was once, I learned, a monkish mill whither every man had perforce to bring his grain to be ground. Now as I stood idly by the gate of the mill-house I heard voices of men in talk, and, without further intention, could not but catch some words of their discourse. It was evident that a bargain was going forward, and that one sold grudgingly.
"Nay," said the one voice, "for this standard of red buckram, sevenpence and no less, Master Ptolemy."