A drawer came speedily to fetch them candles, and barely had he gone when one of the bluecoats, bowing his way in, handed over to Strangwayes his sword. Dick gave him money, and bade him and his fellows go drink. “A pleasant company I’ve been keeping, eh, Hugh?” he asked, with a dry smile, as the man backed out. “How came I by it? Alas, a man cannot always choose. I was about my business at The Hague, like a decent gentleman. And that fat calf, Herbert Bellasis,—’tis a cousin to the whole scurvy connection,—he was there on some mischief, and recognized me.”
Just there came supper, but across the table Strangwayes drawled on: “My friend Bellasis feared a young man like myself might come to harm in foreign parts. So he fetched me home.”
“Fetched you, Dick?”
“Very simply. He and his bluecoats met me of a dark night in a byway. He was urgent, but I refused his invitations. Then they picked me up and conveyed me aboard an English ship.”
“I don’t believe they could,” Hugh said bluntly.
“To be sure, they had knocked the senses out of me, else I had not come so meekly. ’Twas there I got this souse in the head; ’tis near healed now. But there were four bluecoats once; one of them is still at The Hague, cherishing a punctured lung; I gave it to him. We had a merry passage over, Hugh; Bellasis and I must share the cabin and eat together. He used to tell me over the wine—’twas ship’s beer and flat at that—how I ought to be hanged, and he hoped to live to see it done. And I used to compliment him on his mad dare-devil courage. For if at five and thirty he durst attack a single man when he had only four to back him, no doubt at seventy he would dare come on with only two to aid. Nay, if he lived long enough, he might yet arrive at fighting man to man. Methinks the length of years he had to wait discouraged him, by the vile temper that put him in. Every pleasure has an end, so at last we made the Welsh coast and posted hither, in the very nick of time, it seems. For, Hugh, after this last exploit of yours, I’d be loath to leave you fending for yourself. Man alive, where do you think you’d be lying now, if you hadn’t chanced to take the Prince’s fancy?”
Hugh answered submissively that he didn’t know.
“Neither do I,” Strangwayes retorted grimly. “Nay, nay, don’t look conscience-stricken now, for you found the one good chance in a hundred, and it has all come well. But ’tis a blessing for us that his Highness delights to fly about noisily in disguise, instead of plodding soberly about his business. It has been more of a blessing to us, perhaps, than to the kingdom.”
“You shall not speak slurringly of Prince Rupert in my presence!” Hugh flared up.
Strangwayes said, with a laugh, that he would make honorable amends by drinking his Highness’s health, on his knees, if Hugh desired; so they ended amicably by drinking the health together as they stood by their chairs, then religiously smashed their glasses, and went away to bed.