"The name is passing well known to all men of Devon," answered Peter as he surveyed his workmanship with excusable pride. "And Lord Champernoun himself—the only Lord Champernoun that I have known—still dwelleth at his family estate nigh unto the village of Modbury. He is stricken in years and passing feeble; but clear in his mind withal, and as excellent and worthy a Christian gentleman as you will find in all the land. As to his lordship's family, sir, 'tis small in number. He had two sons, your worship, to wit, Edmund Oglander and Jasper; for Oglander is the family name, you must know, Champernoun being but the baron's title, bestowed upon the head of the family in Henry the Fifth's time, and—"
"Ay, I wot well that there were two sons," interrupted the stranger, brusquely, "Edmund and Jasper, you say. Ay, and what of them, I pray you?"
"They both are dead," returned Peter Trollope. "Both lost their lives in distant lands. The Honourable Edmund Oglander, my lord's eldest son, went over to the Netherlands some five years agone, and fell in the battle of Zutphen—the same engagement in which the virtuous and gallant Sir Philip Sidney received his death wound from a Spanish bullet. The younger son, Jasper, died of a fever or some such pestilent mischance out in the Western Indies, whither he had gone to seek adventure and fortune in one of John Hawkins' ships. His lordship grieved not overmuch for the loss of Jasper, 'tis said; nor do I marvel at it, for surely a greater scamp and reprobate than young Jasper Oglander hath never lived."
"And both are dead, eh?" mused the traveller in a strange calculating tone. "Ods life! and who would have thought it? Why, then," he presently added, "it must be that the old baron is now quite alone in the world, and hath none of his own kin to follow him in his title and estates? Sooth, I do pity him to be thus left desolate in his old age, with never a son or a son's son to carry on his honoured name!"
"'Tis doubtless a sore grief to his lordship that his son Edmund surviveth not to enjoy his great inheritance," remarked Peter Trollope, "albeit Master Edmund gave up his life in a good and noble cause, and therein Lord Champernoun hath assuredly a sweet consolation. But if his lordship hath no longer a son, there is, after all, his grandson—a bright and gallant young gentleman, and a worthy heir to so vast an heritage."
The stranger raised his heavy eyebrows in quick surprise.
"So-ho?" quoth he; "a grandson, eh? Prithee, what might be the fortunate stripling's age?"
The barber turned to his son, who was at that moment looking out through the window at a strangely-dressed negro woman who was crossing the road in company with a seaman in the direction of the Three Flagons.
"Tim, what might be Master Gilbert's age?" he asked of the lad.
"Fourteen years, mayhap," answered Timothy. "And speaking of Master Gilbert, father, that remindeth me that I am to meet him at the market-cross at four by the clock; so I must tarry here no longer. I will let him know what you have said concerning the goshawks." And with that he took up his cap, wished his father a "God speed you!" and strolled out into the street.