But here another strange noise drew our eyes up the lane, as an old man in a smock-frock—a pensioner of the estate, and by name John Worthyvale—came hobbling round the corner and down the hill towards us, using his long-handled road hammer for a staff and uttering shrill tremulous cries of rage.
"Vengeance, Sir John! Vengeance for my l'il heap o' stones!"
"Why, Worthyvale, what's the matter?" asked my father, soothingly.
"My l'il heap o' stones, Sir John; my poor l'il heap o' stones! What's to become o' me, master? Where will your kindness find a bellyful for me, if these murderin' seamen take away my l'il heap o' stones?"
My father laid a hand on the old man's shoulder.
"Captain Pomery wants them for ballast, Worthyvale. You understand?
It appears he can find none so suitable.''
"No, I don't understand!" exclaimed the old fellow, fiercely. "This has been a black week for me, Sir John. First of all my darter's youngest darter comes and tells me she've picked up with a man. Seems 'twas only last year she was runnin' about in short frocks; but, dang it! the time must ha' slipped away somehow whilst I've a-sat hammerin' stones, an' now there'll be no person left to mind me. Next news, I hear from Master Gervase that you be goin' foreign, Sir John, with Master Prosper here. The world gets that empty, I wish I were dead, I do. An' now they've a-took my l'il heap o' stones!"
"And this old man's sires," said my father to me, but so that he did not hear, "held land in Domesday Book—twelve virgates of land with close on forty carucates of arable, villeins and borderers and bondservants, six acres of wood, a hundred and twenty of pasture; and he makes his last stand on this heap of stones. Ballast?" He turned to the seaman. "Did I not tell Captain Pomery to ballast with wine?"
"We were carrying it all the forenoon," the seaman answered.
"There was two hogsheads of claret."
"And the hogshead of Madeira, with what remained of the brown sherry? Likewise in bottles twelve dozen of the Hermitage and as much again of the Pope's wine, of Avignon?"