"E'en do as ye list," retorted Gilbert. And Timothy, taking the words for a dismissal, walked slowly away, well-nigh broken-hearted.
On the evening of the following day the news reached Modbury Manor that the Spanish prisoners of war, to the number of seven-and-twenty, had made their escape.
CHAPTER XI.
THE AFFRAY ON POLPERRO BEACH.
IT was at an ivy-covered house standing upon the heights a little distance beyond the fishing village of Polperro that Jacob Hartop had taken his present refuge. His niece, whom he had been at some pains to discover, was the wife of that Captain Whiddon who sailed out in the service of Sir Walter Raleigh, with intent to discover the Land of Gold that was supposed to lie beyond the river Orinoco, and who, with his ship's crew, had endured untold privations in the swamps of Trinidad, all of which may be read in Raleigh's printed account of his discovery of the Empire of Guiana and the great and golden city of Manoa.
Mrs. Mercy Whiddon had a cluster of sturdy boys and girls about her, and you may be sure that Master Hartop was a right welcome guest in their home, for he had a deft hand at the making of a wheelbarrow or a rabbit-hutch, and his tales of adventure were ever of the exciting sort which young people do most delight to hear. Captain Whiddon himself was no less pleased than his sons and daughters to have old Jacob under his roof, for it chanced that Hartop and he had known each other years before, out on the Spanish Main, and had struck up a friendship from the simple reason that they both were men of Devon, and that they both bore the name of Jacob.
On a certain evening, ere yet the children had gone to their beds, the family were seated in the living room. From the window they could see the glistening track of the moon's silvery light across the Channel, with here and there a black-sailed fishing-boat pitching about upon the waves; in moments of silence they could hear the breaking of the tide upon the rocks below the cliff, and the ivy leaves, disturbed by the wind, tapping against the diamond panes of the window casement. Jacob Whiddon sat in the ingle, with Bertha, his youngest girl, perched on his knee. Ambrose Pennington, who had sailed round from Plymouth to confer with the captain on some matter concerning Lord Thomas Howard's fleet, sat near him, while Jacob Hartop sat in the midst of a group of children, who were attentively watching him as with a large knife and a block of deal wood he fashioned the rough hull of a boat.
"And how many masts will the ship have?" questioned one of the boys.
"Three, Master Jack," answered Hartop; "for 'tis a ship royal, like unto the Defiance that is now lying in Plymouth."