The fellow shot him a strange glance and shifted the book from one arm to the other.
"And have never seen Devon? Never laid foot in Bideford, I'll venture." There was a cunning look in his eyes and again he shifted the book.
"'Tis even so."
"A most venomous blow! This wonderfully poseth me." After a time he said in a very low voice, "There is only one other way. Either you have told me a most wicked lie or Jamie Barwick told you."
The fellow, watching like a cat at a rat-hole, saw Phil start at the sound of Jamie Barwick's name.
"I knew it!" he cried. "He'd tell, he'd tell! He's told before—'twas he took the tale to Devon. He's a tall fellow but I'll hox him yet. It was no fault of mine—though I suppose you'll not believe that."
Upon the mind of Philip Marsham there descended a baffling array of memories. The name of the big countryman with the gun carried him back to that afternoon in Moll Stevens's alehouse, whence with good cause he had fled for his life. And now this stray wight, with a great folio volume under his arm, out of a conglomeration of meaningless words had suddenly thrown at the lad's head the name of Jamie Barwick.
"We must have this out between us," the fellow said at last, breathing hard. "I'll not bear the shadow longer. Come, let us sit while we talk, for thereby we may rest from our travels. You see, 'twas thus and so. Jamie Barwick and I came out of Devon and took service with Sir John—Jamie in the stables, for he has a way with horses, and I as under-steward till my wits should be appreciated, which I made sure, I'd have you know, would be soon, for there are few scholars that can match my curious knowledge of the moon's phases and when to plant corn or of the influence of the planets on all manner of husbandry; and further, I have kept the covenant of the living God, which should make all the devils in hell to tremble; and if England keeps it she shall be saved from burning. So when I made shift to get the ear of Sir John, who hath a sharp nose in all affairs of his estate, said I,—and it took a stout heart, I would have you know, for he is a man of hot temper,—said I, if he would engage a hundred pounds at my direction I would return him in a year's time a gain of a fourth again as much as all he would engage.
"'Aha!'" quoth he, "'this is speech after mine own heart. A hundred pounds, sayest thou? 'Tis thine to draw upon, and the man who can turn his talents thus shall be steward of all mine estates. But mind,'—and here he put his finger to his nose, for he hath keen scent for a jest,—'thou shalt go elsewhere to try the meat on the dog, for I'll be no laughingstock; and if thou fail'st then shalt thou go packing, bag and baggage, with the dogs at thy heels. Is 't a bargain?'
"Now there was that in his way of speech which liked me little, for I am used to dealing with quieter men and always I have given my wits to booklearning and to Holy Writ rather than to bickering. But I could not then say him nay, for he held his staff thus and so and laughed in his throat in a way that I have a misliking of. So I said him yea, and took in my own name fifty acres of marsh land, and paid down more than thirty pound sterling, and expended all of eight pound sterling for the ploughing and twice that for the burning, and sowed it with rape-seed at ninepence the acre, and paid twelve pound for the second ploughing and eleven pound for the fencing—all this did I draw from Sir John, who, to pay the Devil his due, gave it me with a free hand; and if God had been pleased to send the ordinary blessing upon mine acres I should have got from it at harvest three hundred or four hundred or even five hundred quarters of good rape-seed. And what with reaping and threshing and all, at four and twenty shillings the quarter I should have repaid him his hundred pounds, threefold or fourfold. All this by the blessing of God should I have done but for some little bugs that came upon mine acres in armies, and the fowls of the air that came in clouds and ate up my rape-seed and my tender young rape, so that I lost all that I laid out. And Sir John would not see that in another year I ought, God favouring me, to get him back his silver I had lost, even as the book says. He is a man of his word and, crying that the jest was worth the money, he sent me out the gate with the dogs at my heels and with Jamie Barwick laughing till his fat belly shook, to see me go; for I was always in terror of the dogs, which are great tall beasts that delight to bark and snap at me. And the last word to greet my ears, ere I thought they would have torn me limb from limb, was Sir John bawling at me, 'Thou puddling quacksalver!' which Jamie Barwick hath told in Bideford, making thereby such mirth that I can no longer abide there but must needs flit about the country. And lo! even thou, who by speech and coat are not of this country at all, dost challenge me by the very words he used."