"Ay, but his treachery and his machinations and intrigues with the King of Spain would yet have been discovered," said Peter Trollope, "even although he had not sought to make himself Baron Champernoun. For it hath been amply proven that even before my Lord Thomas Howard's fleet departed out of Plymouth, Jasper Oglander had connived at the escape of the Spanish prisoners of war—had even planned their escape, indeed,—and had sent off his son Philip to Spain to inform the Spanish king of the purpose of my Lord Thomas's expedition against the plate fleet."
"All that and more than that was brought out at the man's trial in London," said Sir Walter Raleigh. "And now it seemeth that that same son of his, Philip Oglander, was present on board Don Alonzo Bassan's galleon."
"'Twere well, methinks, that the lad had accompanied his father to Tower Hill," remarked Peter Trollope. "And now," he added, "a strange thought hath occurred to me. It is that, should Master Gilbert—or Lord Champernoun as he should truly be named—have been slain in the fight on the Revenge, and should his cousin have escaped, then the cur Philip Oglander must now be regarded as the head of the Oglander family, and the rightful owner of the title and estates."
No one seemed to take notice of this remark, but at last Christopher Pym spoke.
"Better that the title and estates should fall into oblivion than that," said he. "Howsoever it be," he added, rising and taking up his walking-staff, "I am now impelled to take horse and journey to Willoughby Grange, there to inform my Lady Betty Oglander of this news, and bid her return to her rightful home at Modbury."
"I pray you give her ladyship my most devoted remembrances," said Raleigh; "and bid her from me to be of good cheer concerning her son Gilbert, for if the lad be no more, he hath at least given up his life for the honour of his Queen and country, even as his sire and so many other of his noble family hath done before him. Give you good-day, Master Pym, and God speed you."
An hour or so after this conversation had ended, Peter Trollope sat alone in his shop thinking sadly over the remark that had fallen from Sir Walter Raleigh touching the probable fate of the Pilgrim. Trade had not been brisk at the "Pestle and Mortar" during the months of Timothy's absence. Of hair cutting and the trimming of beards there had been plenty, but it chanced that a very skilful man of medicine had opened a business a few doors away, and had succeeded so well that he had drawn all Master Trollope's surgical trade away from him, so that, but for an occasional customer who came in to have a tooth drawn, Peter could scarcely with justice call himself a barber-surgeon, but merely a barber. Also, he had fallen into debt, and his creditors were pressing him for a settlement. Upon all his other distresses had come the word that in all probability his son Timothy had been either killed in battle or drowned in a storm; and this was the destruction of all his hopes, for he had in his more sanguine moments nursed the thought that Tim, even though he returned penniless and ragged, might yet be a help to him at this present time, and a joy to him in the future. But if Tim were really dead, what more could be looked to in this world but continued poverty and hard work and unhappiness?
In the midst of his doleful sorrowings and regrets he heard the clatter of horse's feet on the stones of the street outside. The door of the shop was swung open, and in bounced Timothy himself.
His face was rosy brown and it wore a joyous smile, and although his clothing was woefully ragged and white with the salt of the sea, yet there was an air of dignity about him that was quite foreign to the lad who had gone away seven months earlier. He strode into the shop as though he had been one of the lords of the land, and stood in front of his father with his arms akimbo, looking down upon the amazed barber and laughing at his confusion.
"Father," said Timothy, "I am come back."