"Art weary, Jacob?" asked Gilbert, hearing the old man's heavy breathing.
"Ay, weary of waiting for the Dons," answered Jacob, bending over and taking up a handful of the sand and letting it slowly stream out again between his gnarled fingers. Then presently he added: "Thou hast heard of the coming of the two ships from home,—eh, Master Gilbert?"
"Yes," returned Gilbert, wiping his hot brow with the back of his hand. "Phew! Would that they had brought a few hogsheads of our Devonshire cider with them. But that were too much to expect, methinks." He rose to his feet and stood beside Jacob, with his hands lightly clasped behind his back, and gazed out upon the sea towards where the little Revenge rode at anchor. "Hast heard aught of their news, Master Hartop?" he asked.
Hartop shook his head.
"Naught to speak of," he answered. "It seemeth that Sir Francis Drake hath been summoned to Her Majesty's court, where he is in great favour, and that Sir Walter Raleigh hath fallen into disgrace; but more than this I have heard nothing. It may be, however, that thou'lt learn more from the letter that I bring thee," he added, thrusting his hand into his doublet. "Sir Richard bade me give it thee, saying as he handed it unto me, 'Tell Master Oglander that I would willingly have kept the letter myself, for that by the superscription I do judge it to be a message from my little sweetheart Drusilla'."
Gilbert fairly leapt at the letter when it was produced.
"It is! It is from Drusilla!" he cried, as he glanced at his name upon it. "'Twas she indeed that writ it!" Whereupon he pressed the missive to his lips, glanced at it yet again, and then exclaimed; "Only to think on't, Jacob! Is't not truly passing strange that my sister had this in her hand—ay, and haply kissed it as I do now—scarcely a month ago!" He was about to break the seal, but he forebore. "Nay," he said, "I will not read it now. Let me wait until the joy of receiving it hath abated;" and kissing it again he thrust it securely under his belt and went once more among the sick men, attending to their wants, and giving them such cheer as they had not known for many a day.
In the afternoon, when most of the invalids were asleep, Gilbert escaped from the beach and climbed the high bank of land to the level ground above, where the olive-trees grew. He perched himself upon one of the lower boughs of one of the largest of the trees, and, resting his back against the main trunk, took out his letter.
It had been written, not at Modbury Manor but at Willoughby Grange, the Devonshire seat of Sir Lester Willoughby. Gilbert read it slowly, dwelling on each word with fond interest.
Writ at Willoughby Grange, in the County of
Devon, the 5th day of August, 1591.