Drusilla went before them while they carried him into the dining-hall. She was met on the threshold by Sir Francis Drake, who was then on the point of leaving, a saddled horse being already in waiting for him outside to carry him back to Plymouth. On being hurriedly told what had happened he returned into the hall, threw off his cape and hat, turned up his cuffs, and prepared to exercise his surgical skill in attending to Gilbert's hurts.
"A knife, if you please, Mistress Drusilla," he said, when Timothy had laid the wounded lad upon one of the settles near to the fire. And when the knife was brought he quietly ripped open Gilbert's sleeve, discovering the wound.
"'Tis nothing serious," he said reassuringly to Lord Champernoun, who stood near with Raleigh, Grenville, and many others who had crowded round. "Let him have a warm potion to drink and some food, an he will but take it, and when I have bound up the arm he had best be put to bed."
Timothy Trollope moved to the table to get a cup of mulled sack. As he was passing behind where Drusilla stood he caught sight of Jasper Oglander and his son, both of whom, having risen from their supper, were looking over the girl's shoulders at Gilbert. There was a subdued look of enmity in Jasper Oglander's eyes, which Timothy did not understand. He remembered it long afterwards, however, when circumstances and a better knowledge of the man's nature explained its meaning.
CHAPTER VII.
THE INSTINCT OF A BRUTE DOG.
JASPER OGLANDER and his son were up betimes on the following morning, and had come down to the lower rooms while yet the housemaids were sweeping up the rushes from the floors and dusting the furniture. Seeing one of the serving-men coming from the buttery Jasper called out to him, commanding him to bring two stoups of small ale. The man was waiting to take the emptied vessels, when the sound of a loud bell clanged through the house. At this Philip Oglander bowed his head and crossed himself; whereupon his father trod upon his toe and frowned at him.
"Thou fool!" said Jasper when the man had left them. "Dost want to betray us so soon? Did I not warn thee an hundred times that these people are all of the Protestant faith—heretics and Lutherans who would but despise us and regard us as enemies did they know that we are of the Holy Church? By the Rood, boy, thy forgetfulness hath nearly cost us dearly, for look at who cometh behind thee—thy cousin Drusilla, a saucy maid, by her favour, and it may be a dangerous."
Drusilla was at the moment descending the broad staircase, carrying a little basket of apples in her one hand, and with the other drawing the hood of her mulberry-coloured cloak over her fair hair. She curtsied low and bade them a good-morrow when she came before them into the front hall.