After this Sir Mark seemed disposed to shirk the visit, but he made an effort, and walked through the place more manfully, looking with curious eyes at the dull black grains, or masses of composition in an unfinished state.
“How would his Majesty like a run through here?” said the founder, with a chuckle. “Powder will always have an ill savour in his nostrils.”
It was with no little sense of relief that Sir Mark found himself outside, close by the shed where the great howitzer had been placed, and at his solicitation the founder readily consented to have the gun out once more, and with boyish eagerness devoted himself to test the powers of the piece and its bursting shells, when loaded after Gil’s own fashion.
At last the founder and his guest had returned, partaken of the evening meal, which Mace dispensed with the calmness of one whose heart was quite at rest; and finally she had retired to find occasion to take Janet to task for being giggling and whispering in the shrubbery with one of Sir Mark’s gaily-dressed men, for by dint of careful drying and smoothing, the traces of the plunge into the mill-race had been made to disappear.
“Now, Master Cobbe,” said Sir Mark, “let us calmly and in friendly spirit talk over our affairs again. Suppose you fill your glass.”
“That I will,” said the founder; “and you do the same.”
“I’ll drink with you and welcome,” said Sir Mark, filling his glass, nodding, and then wetting his lips, while the founder took a hearty draught.
“That’s better,” he said. “And now, sir, what is it to be—a good order for his Majesty’s troops?”
“Yes, and fortune for you Master Cobbe. This order will be but the introduction to many. Why should you not be ordnance-master to his Majesty?”
“Why, indeed, my lad,” said the founder, composedly. “I should gain, of course, but the King would be no loser.”