'You are merry, sir, but I jest not,' said the Sergeant, drawing himself up very stiff on his horse. 'What I say is sober truth. The first human eyes that ever saw me, as I could ever hear, were just those of an old gunner, who found me one night in the mouth of his culverin. He, good soul, took care of me. "She is the only lass I ever loved," he was wont to say, "but I never thought she would be mother of a son to me." So he took me home, and his mates and he would have the priest kursten me "Culverin" after my mother, and "Alexander," because they said I must be born to be a mighty soldier.'
'Truly, Sergeant,' said I, seeing how serious he was, though I had much ado to stop laughing, 'a most honourable and soldierly descent.'
'Ay, sir, you may say that,' he answered, looking round at Lashmer, from whom came a sound of choking laughter. 'A most soldierly and royal parentage. She was as good a piece as ever was cast, and stamped, look you, with King Harry's own arms, rest his soul! To say no more, for modesty's sake, it is not one or two who have rued their ribald merriment at what I am telling you.'
And with that he laid his hand upon the great steel hilt of his broadsword, and glared so terribly at Lashmer that I thought the poor lad would have fallen from his saddle from pure fear of the bristling of the Sergeant's fierce moustache.
I do not think Lashmer ever laughed at Sergeant Culverin again, at least not in his face. Indeed it was not many who did; most men feared his sword too much, and those who knew him best, and were not afraid, loved him too well.
I think three men never greeted each other more warmly than Frank, Harry, and I when I reached Ashtead. It was like summer to see them again, yet I found them much altered.
Harry seemed shocked by his father's death, and looked very sad in his black clothes. His face was bronzed, his short beard neatly trimmed to a point, and a scar scarce healed stretched across one temple. Yet I thought I never saw him look more manly, handsome, or lovable, in spite of the foreign look his travels had given him.
Captain Drake, too, was changed. His eye was as bright and his ways as cheery as ever; yet when he was not speaking I could see in his face a harder and sterner look than there used to be. His dress, too, was very different to what he had worn in the old days; though plain, it was of good stuff, and cut according to the fashion. He wore, moreover, a smart rapier, and had the air of a gentleman, though without having lost his sailor-like looks.
'You will want to know why I sent for you, Jasper,' said Harry, as soon as our greetings were over.
'Nay, that do I not,' said I; 'so long as you sent for me, that is enough.'